Computing navigational routes in inhomogeneous environments using BVP Path Planner

BVP Path Planners generate potential fields whose gradient descent represents navigational routes from any point of the environment to a goal position. The resulting trajectories are smooth and free of local minima. In this paper, we proceed with our comprehensive study on possible forms for the core equation of the planner. The main goal is to allow the planner to deal with inhomogeneous environments. The navigational potential is calculated independently in different patches of the environment. Each patch has its own bias for potential concavity (or convexity), then creating regions with higher or lower traveling preferences. By using simulated experiments we compare the performance of the new BVP with some recent proposals.