Robot path planning and smoothing based on fuzzy inference

To guide an autonomous robot in the space of obstacles, an enhanced path planning system including image processing, cluster reduction, path planning and smoothing based on fuzzy inference is proposed in this paper. To shorten the path planning time, the obstacles in the captured image are clustered into smaller groups firstly. Being a roadmap method for path generation, the fuzzy inference mechanism is employed consecutively. To smooth the planned path, a novel algorithm based on second fuzzy inference mechanism is proposed to move the rough waypoints. To verify the effectiveness of the proposed system, some simulations are carried out. From the simulations, the autonomous robot possesses good path planning and smoothing performance to reach its goal safely under various obstacle layouts.