Path Planning in Structured Environment using Harmonic Potential Fields via Block Iterative Method
2017
Harmonic potential fields have been known very useful to solve path planning problems globally.This study presents the use of harmonic potential fields (HPFs) for robot navigation in a known indoor environment.The harmonic potential fields were obtained using an iteration procedure based on block methods and subsequently used in the path planning simulation.The simulation was designed in a structured environment which contains various forms of obstacles such as narrow corridors, corners and small rooms, where several different start and goal positions were tested.For performance comparison purposes, the standard point Gauss-Seidel (GS) and Successive Overrelaxation (SOR) methods were also considered.The simulation results showed that the HPFs were capable of providing smooth path for robot navigation in a structured environment.It was also shown that the block iterative methods were more efficient compared to the standard point iterative methods in computing the HPFs.