A topologically guided path planner for an AUV using homotopy classes

The paper proposes a method that uses topological information to guide the path search in any 2D workspace. As a first contribution, we have extended the method proposed by Jenkins to generate the topological information by taking into consideration the constraints of the workspace during the construction of the topological environment, which is then used to compute topological paths. As a second contribution, a planner based on the Rapidly-exploring Random Tree (RRT), called Homotopic RRT (HRRT) is proposed to use the topological information to guide the path search in the workspace. Finally, simulated and real results with an Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV) are presented showing the feasibility of the proposal. Comparison with well-known path planning algorithms has also been included.