Optimal robot path planning based on danger degree map

A modified path planning approach is presented for mobile robot in the paper. First a new environment model called danger degree map (DDM) is constructed in order to provide more rich environment information than grids map. Then the equidistant distributed PSO whose fitness function is the weighted sum of the path length and the path danger degree is introduced to get a more reliable path than conventional PSO method, but it is not suitable for some specific environment. In order to expand the application scope of PSO, we proposed non-equidistant distributed PSO method based on the rate of change of barrier, which can enhance the adaptability to the environment. The algorithm present in the paper not only has a simple model and a rapid convergence, but also can avoid obstacles automatically and can obtain optimal path in different environments. Simulation results demonstrate the effectiveness and feasibility of the proposed methods.