Path planning based on geodesic for mobile robots

In this paper, a geodesic-based method is proposed for the robot path planning problem. The geodesic, on the smooth curved surface constructed by potential field, is used to provide the robot a path to the target without trapping in the local minima. The relation between the potential and the geodesic is analyzed and some local properties of the geodesic are obtained, which are used to adjust the direction of the geodesic-based path. The proposed approach based on the data obtained by the sensor can be applied to the dynamical environment and it is verified by simulations.