Application of an Improved A* Algorithm in Route Planning

The A* algorithm is a kind of heuristic algorithm which has been used widely in route planning, and the heuristic function plays an important part in the algorithm. Through the analysis of the problems in A* algorithm, the paper makes some improvement for A* algorithm as bellow: one is that the cost function takes the distance and direction as two heuristic elements, and the paper solves the problem that they have different units by normalization; another is the paper uses an k-d tree structure in the implementation of the A* algorithm, loads the nodes information dynamically, and reduces consumption of the memory. The experimental results show that the efficiency of A* algorithm has been improved greatly.