PRM path smoothening by circular arc fillet method for mobile robot navigation

TL;DR

This paper introduces a method for smoothing mobile robot paths generated by PRM using arc fillets, resulting in shorter, smoother, and more efficient navigation around obstacles.

Contribution

It proposes a novel two-step path smoothing technique with arc fillets applied to PRM-generated paths for improved robot navigation.

Findings

Paths are smoother with arc fillets.

Smoothed paths are shorter and quicker to traverse.

Method effectively avoids obstacles while enhancing path quality.

Abstract

Motion planning and navigation, especially for mobile robots operating in complex navigational environments, has been a central problem since robotics started. A heuristic way to address it is the construction of a graph-based representation (a path) capturing the connectivity of the configuration space. Probabilistic Roadmap is a commonly used method by the robotics community to build a path for navigational mobile robot path planning. In this study, path smoothening by arc fillets is proposed for mobile robot path planning after obtaining the path from PRM in the presence of the obstacle. The proposed method runs in two steps; the first one is generating the shortest path between the initial state to one of the goal states in the obstacle presence environment, wherein the PRM is used to construct a straight-lined path by connecting the intermediate nodes. The second step is smoothening every corner caused by node presence. Smoothening the corners with arc fillets ensures smooth turns for the mobile robots. The suggested method has been simulated and tested with different PRM features. Experiment results show that the constructed path is not just providing smooth turning; it is also shorter and quicker to finish for a robot while avoiding obstacles.