Anti-rollover Artificial Potential Field Motion Planning Method of an Autonomous Heavy Truck Optimised by Game Theory

Anti-rollover is a critical factor to consider when planning the motion of autonomous heavy trucks.This paper proposed a method for autonomous heavy trucks to generate a path that avoids collisions and minimizes rollover risk.The corresponding rollover index is deduced from a 5-DOF heavy truck dynamic model that includes longitudinal motion,lateral motion,yaw motion,sprung mass roll motion,unsprung mass roll motion,and an anti-rollover artificial potential field(APF)is proposed based on this.The motion planning method,which is based on model predictive control(MPC),combines trajectory tracking,anti-rollover APF,and the improved obstacle avoidance APF and considers the truck dynamics constraints,obstacle avoidance,and anti-rollover.Furthermore,by using game theory,the coefficients of the two APF functions are optimised,and an optimal path is planned.The effectiveness of the optimised motion planning method is demonstrated in a variety of scenarios.The results demonstrate that the optimised motion planning method can effectively and efficiently avoid collisions and prevent rollover.

Cooperative Search of UAV Swarm Based on Ant Colony Optimization with Artificial Potential Field

An ant colony optimization with artificial potential field(ACOAPF)algorithm is proposed to solve the cooperative search mission planning problem of unmanned aerial vehicle(UAV)swarm.This algorithm adopts a distributed architecture where each UAV is considered as an ant and makes decision autonomously.At each decision step,the ants choose the next gird according to the state transition rule and update its own artificial potential field and pheromone map based on the current search results.Through iterations of this process,the cooperative search of UAV swarm for mission area is realized.The state transition rule is divided into two types.If the artificial potential force is larger than a threshold,the deterministic transition rule is adopted,otherwise a heuristic transition rule is used.The deterministic transition rule can ensure UAVs to avoid the threat or approach the target quickly.And the heuristics transition rule considering the pheromone and heuristic information ensures the continuous search of area with the goal of covering more unknown area and finding more targets.Finally,simulations are carried out to verify the effectiveness of the proposed ACOAPF algorithm for cooperative search mission of UAV swarm.

Dynamic collision avoidance for cooperative fixed-wing UAV swarm based on normalized artificial potential field optimization

Cooperative path planning is an important area in fixed-wing UAV swarm.However,avoiding multiple timevarying obstacles and avoiding local optimum are two challenges for existing approaches in a dynamic environment.Firstly,a normalized artificial potential field optimization is proposed by reconstructing a novel function with anisotropy in each dimension,which can make the flight speed of a fixed UAV swarm independent of the repulsive/attractive gain coefficient and avoid trapping into local optimization and local oscillation.Then,taking into account minimum velocity and turning angular velocity of fixed-wing UAV swarm,a strategy of decomposing target vector to avoid moving obstacles and pop-up threats is proposed.Finally,several simulations are carried out to illustrate superiority and effectiveness.

Collision avoidance planning in multi-robot system based on improved artificial potential field and rules

For real-time and distributed features of multi-robot system,the strategy of combining the improved artificial potential field method and the rules based on priority is proposed to study the collision avoidance planning in multi-robot systems. The improved artificial potential field based on simulated annealing algorithm satisfactorily overcomes the drawbacks of traditional artificial potential field method,so that robots can find a local collision-free path in the complex environment. According to the movement vector trail of robots,collisions between robots can be detected,thereby the collision avoidance rules can be obtained. Coordination between robots by the priority based rules improves the real-time property of multi-robot system. The combination of these two methods can help a robot to find a collision-free path from a starting point to the goal quickly in an environment with many obstacles. The feasibility of the proposed method is validated in the VC-based simulated environment.

Solution to reinforcement learning problems with artificial potential field

A novel method was designed to solve reinforcement learning problems with artificial potential field.Firstly a reinforcement learning problem was transferred to a path planning problem by using artificial potential field(APF),which was a very appropriate method to model a reinforcement learning problem.Secondly,a new APF algorithm was proposed to overcome the local minimum problem in the potential field methods with a virtual water-flow concept.The performance of this new method was tested by a gridworld problem named as key and door maze.The experimental results show that within 45 trials,good and deterministic policies are found in almost all simulations.In comparison with WIERING's HQ-learning system which needs 20 000 trials for stable solution,the proposed new method can obtain optimal and stable policy far more quickly than HQ-learning.Therefore,the new method is simple and effective to give an optimal solution to the reinforcement learning problem.

NOVEL APPROACH FOR ROBOT PATH PLANNING BASED ON NUMERICAL ARTIFICIAL POTENTIAL FIELD AND GENETIC ALGORITHM

A novel approach for collision-free path planning of a multiple degree-of-freedom （DOF） articulated robot in a complex environment is proposed. Firstly, based on visual neighbor point （VNP）, a numerical artificial potential field is constructed in Cartesian space, which provides the heuristic information, effective distance to the goal and the motion direction for the motion of the robot joints. Secondly, a genetic algorithm, combined with the heuristic rules, is used in joint space to determine a series of contiguous configurations piecewise from initial configuration until the goal configuration is attained. A simulation shows that the method can not only handle issues on path planning of the articulated robots in environment with complex obstacles, but also improve the efficiency and quality of path planning.

Mobile robot path planning method combined improved artificial potential field with optimization algorithm

To overcome the shortcomings of the traditional artificial potential field method in mobile robot path planning, an improved artificial potential field model （IAPFM） was established, then a new path planning method combining the IAPFM with optimization algorithm （trust region algorithm） is proposed. Attractive force between the robot and the target location, and repulsive force between the robot and the obstacles are both converted to the potential field intensity; and filled potential field is used to guide the robot to go out of the local minimum points ; on this basis, the effect of dynamic obstacles velocity and the robot＇s velocity is consid thers and the IAPFM is established, then both the expressions of the attractive potential field and the repulsive potential field are obtained. The trust region algorithm is used to search the minimum value of the sum of all the potential field inten- sities within the movement scope which the robot can arrive in a sampling period. Connecting of all the points which hare the minimum intensity in every sampling period constitutes the global optimization path. Experiment result shows that the method can meet the real-time requirement, and is able to execute the mobile robot path planning task effectively in the dynamic environment.

基于改进APF-QRRT^(*)策略的移动机器人路径规划

针对Q-RRT^(*)算法在路径规划过程中无法兼顾可达性和安全性的问题,提出一种改进APF-QRRT^(*)(IAPF-QRRT^(*))路径规划策略。IAPF-QRRT^(*)策略通过Q-RRT^(*)算法获得一组连接起点到终点的离散关键路径点,较传统的快速搜索随机树(RRT^(*))算法具备更好的初始解和更快的收敛速度。改进传统人工势场(APF)方法获得一种新的无势正交向量场,在一定条件下使整体排斥向量场与吸引向量场正交,并将其作用于关键路径点,从而提高路径的安全性。将IAPF-QRRT^(*)策略与其他算法比较,通过数值模拟实验证明了所提策略的有效性。

Local minima-free design of artificial coordinating fields

In order to overcome the drawbacks of conventional artificial potential fields (APF) based methods for the motion planning problems of mobile robots in dynamic uncertain environments, an artificial coordinating fields (ACF) based method has been proposed recently. This paper deals with the reachability problem of the ACF, that is, how to design and choose the parameters of the ACF and how the environment should be such that the robot can reach its goal without being trapped in local minima. Some sufficient conditions for these purposes are developed theoretically. Theoretical analyses show that, the ACF can effectively remove local minima in dynamic uncertain environments with V-shape or U-shape obstacles, and guide the mobile robot to reach its goal with some necessary environment constraints and based on the methods provided in this paper to properly choose the parameters of the ACF. Comparisons between the ACF and APF, and simulations are provided to illustrate the advantages of the ACF.

Ant Colony Optimization with Potential Field Based on Grid Map for Mobile Robot Path Planning

For the mobile robot path planning under the complex environment,ant colony optimization with artificial potential field based on grid map is proposed to avoid traditional ant colony algorithm's poor convergence and local optimum.Firstly,the pheromone updating mechanism of ant colony is designed by a hybrid strategy of global map updating and local grids updating.Then,some angles between the vectors of artificial potential field and the orientations of current grid are introduced to calculate the visibility of eight-neighbor cells of cellular automata,which are adopted as ant colony's inspiring factor to calculate the transition probability based on the pseudo-random transition rule cellular automata.Finally,mobile robot dynamic path planning and the simulation experiments are completed by this algorithm,and the experimental results show that the method is feasible and effective.

Intelligent decision-making method for vehicles in emergency conditions based on artificial potential fields and finite state machines

This study aims to propose a decision-making method based on artificial potential fields(APFs)and finite state machines(FSMs)in emergency conditions.This study presents a decision-making method based on APFs and FSMs for emergency conditions.By modeling the longitudinal and lateral potential energy fields of the vehicle,the driving state is identified,and the trigger conditions are provided for path planning during lane changing.In addition,this study also designed the state transition rules based on the longitudinal and lateral virtual forces.It established the vehicle decision-making model based on the finite state machine to ensure driving safety in emergency situations.To illustrate the performance of the decision-making model by considering APFs and finite state machines.The version of the model in the co-simulation platform of MATLAB and CarSim shows that the developed decision model in this study accurately generates driving behaviors of the vehicle at different time intervals.The contributions of this study are two-fold.A hierarchical vehicle state machine decision model is proposed to enhance driving safety in emergency scenarios.Mathematical models for determining the transition thresholds of lateral and longitudinal vehicle states are established based on the vehicle potential field model,leading to the formulation of transition rules between different states of autonomous vehicles(AVs).

Artificial potential field-empowered dynamic holographic optical tweezers for particle-array assembly and transformation

Owing to the ability to parallel manipulate micro-objects,dynamic holographic optical tweezers(HOTs)are widely used for assembly and patterning of particles or cells.However,for simultaneous control of large-scale targets,potential collisions could lead to defects in the formed patterns.Herein we introduce the artificial potential field(APF)to develop dynamic HOTs that enable collision-avoidance micro-manipulation.By eliminating collision risks among particles,this method can maximize the degree of parallelism in multi-particle transport,and it permits the implementation of the Hungarian algorithm for matching the particles with their target sites in a minimal pathway.In proof-of-concept experiments,we employ APF-empowered dynamic HOTs to achieve direct assembly of a defect-free 8×8 array of microbeads,which starts from random initial positions.We further demonstrate successive flexible transformations of a 7×7 microbead array,by regulating its tilt angle and inter-particle spacing distances with a minimalist path.We anticipate that the proposed method will become a versatile tool to open up new possibilities for parallel optical micromanipulation tasks in a variety of fields.

基于改进APF-FMT^(*)的农业机器人路径规划算法

【目的】解决农业机器人在复杂农业环境下全局路径规划耗时过长、路径最优解求解困难的问题。【方法】提出一种基于改进人工势场法的快速行进树算法(APF-FMT^(*))。首先,在引力势场中引入相对距离,根据与目标点的距离改变引力大小,克服了人工势场法距离目标点过远时引力过大的问题;然后,将FMT^(*)算法与改进人工势场法相结合,采用三阶B样条曲线对路径进行平滑处理;最后,建立3个农业工作地图进行仿真试验。【结果】仿真结果表明,与FMT^(*)、RRT^(*)和Informed-RRT^(*)3种算法对比,在地图Map1和Map2中,APF-FMT^(*)都能快速找到良好的解,且随样本数量增加获得的路径解得到改善,搜索时间比其他3种算法减少45%以上;在有狭小通道的Map3中,APF-FMT^(*)、FMT^(*)搜索时间比RRT^(*)和Informed-RRT^(*)减少75%以上,并且获得更好的解。【结论】本研究提出的APF-FMT^(*)算法不仅克服了FMT^(*)算法冗余探索问题,还有效地解决了人工势场法目标点不可达的问题,提高了农业机器人路径规划效率和作业安全性。

基于双向目标偏置APF-informed-RRT^(*)算法的机械臂路径规划

针对当前机械臂路径规划算法存在搜索随机性大、目标偏置性差和路径曲折等问题,提出了一种基于双向目标偏置的APF-informed-RRT^(∗)算法。首先在双向informed-RRT^(∗)基础上引入概率自适应的目标偏置策略,降低搜索的随机性,提高采样效率;其次针对路径扩展在双向搜索树中融入人工势场法,减少算法的迭代次数;同时在路径生长阶段,采用动态步长生长策略,即根据搜索树的扩展趋势动态调整步长,避免出现局部最优,并且加快路径搜索时间;最后针对冗余节点采用三角不等式原理进行去除,进而通过B样条曲线对路径进行平滑处理,得到最优规划路径。通过与双向RRT^(∗)、双向informed-RRT^(∗)和双向P-RRT^(∗)等算法在三维环境下进行了仿真对比实验验证,相较于双向RRT^(∗)在时间上节约了41%,在采样点数量上减少了63%;相较于双向informed-RRT∗在时间上节约了58%,在采样数量上减少了68%;相较于双向P-RRT^(∗)在时间上节约了30%,在采样数量上减少了60%。

基于A^(*)和APF算法的果园喷雾机器人路径规划

针对丘陵山区果园喷雾机器人作业路径覆盖率低、平滑性差和避障能力弱的问题,提出一种融合改进A^(*)和人工势场(APF)算法的路径规划算法。通过优化A^(*)算法估值函数、引入中间节点和非均匀三次样条插值法,实现全局路径规划;并通过修正引力势场函数和融合模拟退火算法,增强APF法的避障能力;提取全局路径关键点作为子目标点,采用APF算法进行二次规划。结果表明:融合算法保证了路径规划的全局最优和平滑性,实现了动态避障。

基于改进APF-Informed-RRT^(*)的机械臂避障路径规划

针对Informed-RRT^(*)算法在避障路径规划中缺乏目的性和方向性,存在规划时间长、迭代效率低等问题,提出了结合人工势场法和Informed-RRT^(*)算法的避障规划算法。首先,针对传统人工势场法存在目标点不可达、易与障碍物碰撞的问题,提出了改进后的人工势场法,并将其融入Informed-RRT^(*)算法中,使随机树沿势场下降的方向生长,增强其方向性;其次,依据随机树与障碍物间的距离,提出了一种自适应生长步长策略,提高了对空间的探索能力;最后,引入贪心算法的思想,在生长时直接判断随机树能否直达目标点,提高了路径规划效率。在二维和三维环境下对改进后的算法与传统算法及其衍生算法进行对比实验,仿真结果表明改进后的Informed-RRT^(*)算法相较于原始算法规划的路径长度和规划耗时分别减少了17.42%和36.21%。

改进RRT^(*)-APF-DP融合算法的机械臂路径规划

针对基本的快速拓展随机树算法(rapidly-exploring random tree,RRT^(*))存在搜索随机性大、效率低、路径非最优的缺点,提出一种引入人工势场法算法(artificial potential field method,APF)和Douglas-Peucker算法的改进RRT^(*)-APF-DP路径规划算法.在RRT*算法的采样点生成阶段引入变采样范围偏置搜索与步长自适应调整策略,融合重新设计的APF算法的引力与斥力函数,增强路径扩展导向性与绕过障碍物能力.采用重采样策略改进DP算法,优化避障代价与控制点数量.实验结果表明,本算法规划的避障路径满足机械臂的运动要求,且算法规划的避障路径代价、规划时间和路径控制节点数均得到有效改善.

基于改进D*Lite⁃APF算法的巡检机器人路径规划

针对巡检机器人在动态场景下路径规划存在非全局最优、路径不平滑及局部避障效果不佳的问题,提出一种将改进D*Lite算法和人工势场法融合的算法。首先优化D*Lite算法启发代价函数,提升规划效率,并引入Dubins曲线平滑生成的全局路径;其次改进人工势场法势场函数并添加随机半径扰动点,解决局部碰撞问题,提高避障性能;最后将两种优化算法有效融合,实现全局规划和局部避障。仿真实验结果表明,相较于单一D*Lite算法,融合算法在路径长度、时间花销、路径拐点及扩展节点数方面均表现更优,能在确保全局路径最优的情况下有效避障。

改进APF的无人机编队避障最优一致性控制方法

针对传统人工势场(Artificial Potential Field,APF)解决避障问题时出现的局部极小值、目标不可达等缺点,提出了一种结合APF和具有协同避障效果的最优一致性控制方法。基于固定无向通信拓扑的双积分器无人机编队模型,引入具有避障代价函数的最优一致性控制协议,解决APF避障的局限性问题,同时对多无人机进行编队控制,使无人机编队控制系统的一致性性能指标、控制消耗性能指标和避障性能指标达到最优解。此外,通过对每架无人机构建虚拟斥力势场,防止在避障过程中出现机间碰撞。仿真结果表明,与改进APF的非最优一致性控制相比,本文提出的改进APF的最优一致性控制能够缩短任务用时32%,且能够极大程度上保持队形完整性,减少避障所造成的一致性消耗和控制损耗。