Differential Evolution Optimization of Ferguson Splines for Soccer Robot Path Planning

Moving over the best path across the game field is crucial for soccer robots and therefore, path planning is an important task for them. In this paper, we propose a solution for path planning, using Differential Evolution (DE) algorithm and cubic Ferguson Splines. At first, a path for robot movement is described by Ferguson splines, and then we employ DE algorithm to optimize the parameters of the splines in order to plan an optimal path between the beginning and the end points considering obstacles between them. The experimental results showed the performance improvements of the proposed solution in comparison with other intelligent algorithms.