Neural path planning for mobile robots

Abstract

Navigation is a major challenge for autonomous, mobile robots. The problem can basically be divided into positioning and path planning. The proposed path finding strategy is designed in a known static environments. The proposed method starts from an initial point to a target point establishing a control nodes neural networks for which connections are made to determine the form of the path. This algorithm provides the robot the possibility to move from the initial position to the final position (target). The robot moves within the unknown environment by sensing and avoiding the obstacles coming across its way towards the target. The proposed algorithm can deal with any shape obstacles even if it is the case of circular obstacles. This case is the hardest one in any navigation problem. The problem is solved by proposing neural networks navigation systems. Indeed, NNs are well adapted in appropriate form when knowledge based systems are involved. Since the network is able to take into account and respond to new constraints and data related to the external environments, the adaptation here is largely related to the learning capacity. Besides, Networks of neurons can achieve complex classification based on the elementary capability of each neuron to distinguish classes its activation function. Some useful solutions are proposed for each situation. For any proposed environment, the robot succeeds to reach its target without collisions. The results are satisfactory to see the great number of environments treated The simulation results display the ability of the neural networks based approach providing autonomous mobile robots with capability to intelligently navigate in several environments