A low cost path planer in unknown environments for autonomous mobile robots

This paper presents a new motion planning algorithm for mobile robot in a local environment. The algorithm uses the step-by-step approach to move the robot along the line that joins the starting point and the goal point. When an obstacle is met the algorithm assigns a value to each point of the eight surrounding points that surround the current point then the robot moves to the point that has the minimum value. Each obstacle point is assigned a relatively large value, while the value assigned to a non-obstacle point is the algebraic sum of the horizontal and the vertical distances from the goal point. The proposed algorithm completely eliminates the local minima problem, which is exhibited in most artificial potential methods, and most important it eliminates the "flat-regions" problem. The proposed algorithm is superior to other algorithms because of its simplicity and its low-computational cost. It is also superior to the blind follow algorithms. Simulation results reflects the validity and the potential of the proposed algorithm.