A NEW POTENTIAL FIELD-BASED ALGORITHM FOR PATH PLANNING

In this paper, the path-planning problem is considered. We introduce a new potential function for path planning that has the remarkable feat ure that it is free from any local minima in the free space irrespecti ve of the number of obstacles in the configuration space. The only glo bal minimum is the goal configuration whose region of attraction exten ds over the whole free space. We also propose a new method for path op timization using an expanding sphere that can be used with any potenti al or penalty function. Simulations using a point mobile robot and smo oth obstacles are presented to demonstrate the qualities of the new po tential function. Finally, practical considerations are also discussed for nonpoint robots.