Multi-robot dynamic path planning with priority based on simulated annealing

Abstract

This paper presents a path planning method based on an improved simulated annealing (SA) for multi-robot navigation in a 2D plane. The method can achieve collision-free and efficient movement in environments where dynamic obstacles exist. To address the problem of considerable computational effort of general heuristic algorithms, this study improves the running process of the algorithm so that it can lock the optimal path in the process of searching for a path at a very fast speed. In addition, a prioritisation strategy is proposed for the problem of difficult coordination among multiple robots. The method has a large improvement in the coordinated operation between individual robots. Simulation tests show that the proposed method can coordinate multiple robots to avoid collisions, whilst effectively avoiding local minima and completing the task in the shortest possible time. Compared with other algorithms, the advantages of the improved SA are more obvious, and the path length obtained is about 10% shorter than other dynamic path planning algorithms, and the success rate can reach 100%.