Path planning strategies for logistics robots: Integrating enhanced A-star algorithm and DWA

Abstract

Path planning is the key part in the process of transportation conducted by logistics robots, and there often exist some problems with it. The path designed is not always smooth enough and its search efficiency is low, for example. As a common global path planning algorithm, A-star is based on the traditional algorithm, which is unable to solve the problem of uneven path in the movement of logistics robots. Through improving the heuristic function of the traditional A-star algorithm, weighing the heuristic function dynamically, removing the redundant points of the traditional star algorithm path with Floyd algorithm, and setting a safe distance to prevent the logistics robot from collision at the same time, the path is finally curved to be more appropriate to the movement path of the logistics robot. The MATLAB simulation of A-star algorithm before and after the improvement shows that the turning points of the advanced A-star algorithm reduced 61.5% on average compared to the traditional algorithm. The path length decreased 2.4% and the traversing points reduced 58.5%. At the same time, the DWA algorithm introduces dynamic weight coefficients, which can dynamically adjust the weight coefficients when encountering obstacles, so as to safely reach the target point.