Application of Global Route-Planning Algorithms with Geodesy

TL;DR

This paper introduces a new simulator for global route-planning algorithms on Earth's surface, comparing A*, LPA*, and D*Lite in terms of accuracy and execution time, emphasizing the importance of heuristics for optimal paths.

Contribution

It presents a novel simulator for evaluating GRPAs and provides a comparative analysis of three algorithms using geodesic calculations for improved accuracy.

Findings

Consistent heuristics lead to optimal paths.

Differences among algorithms are mainly in execution time.

Geodesic algorithms improve distance calculation precision.

Abstract

Global Route-Planning Algorithms (GRPA) are required to compute paths between several points located on Earth's surface. A geodesic algorithm is employed as an auxiliary tool, increasing the precision of distance calculations. This work presents a novel simulator for GRPA, which compares and evaluates three GRPAs implemented to solve the shortest path problem for points located at different cities: A*, LPA*, and D*Lite. The performance of each algorithm is investigated with a set of experiments, which are executed to check the answers provided by the algorithms and to compare their execution time. It is shown that GRPAs implementations with consistent heuristics lead to optimal paths. The noticeable differences among those algorithms are related to the time execution after successive executions.