Mobile robot path planning:: a multicriteria approach

This paper addresses the problem of searching paths in a graph-based model of the environment for mobile robot navigation. Unlike conventional approaches, where just a scalar cost (or a scaler function combining several costs) is to be optimized, this paper proposes a multicriteria path planner that provides an efficient and natural way of both defining and solving problems in which conflicting criteria are involved. In particular, the multicriteria METAL-A* algorithm is used as the core of a mobile robot global path planner. This algorithm has been implemented and tested in the RAM-2 mobile robot for indoor navigation. The results presented demonstrate the performance of the algorithm when dealing with energy-consumption, temporal, and clearance restrictions on the paths. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.