Optimal Robot Path Planning Based on Fuzzy Model of Obstacles

The Dijkstra method is one of the well-known algorithms in graph theory for determining an optimum path. Some researchers have utilized this algorithm and represented some modified solutions for optimum robot path planning problems. They used a mass-point technique for robot modeling and further the dimensions and shape of robots have not been taken into account. These assumptions make their methods less efficient particularly in places where robot dimensions are comparable with those of the obstacles. This paper presents a more realistic robot modeling in which the dimensions and shape of robots have been taken into consideration. In addition, obstacles have been modeled based on fuzzy concepts. This insures that the robot smoothly tracks a specific optimal path while collision with obstacles is avoided, and further the sensitivity of optimal path to both precise locations and shape of obstacles is relaxed. In order to show the efficiency of the proposed method, we developed a software in Visual Basic 6 environment to simulate the robot path planning problem. Some test cases have been performed. The results of simulations easily approve the outperformance of the proposed method