An algorithm inspired by the deterministic annealing approach to avoid local minima in artificial potential fields

Local minima are still an important unsolved problem for artificial potential field approaches. In order to overcome this problem, we propose in this paper a new method inspired by the deterministic annealing approach that can be classified as LMA, since it prevents the robot from being trapped in a local minimum point, and allows the robot to continue its trajectory towards the final destination. In order to show the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm, simulations are carried out to compare the proposed approach with the following methods: i) the artificial potential field with no mechanism to deal with local minimum; ii) an LME method based on the simulated annealing approach; iii) another LME method also based on deterministic annealing.