Research on Mobile Robot Path Planning Based on the Weighted A* Algorithm

Abstract

The path planning problem is crucial in different areas like autonomous navigation and so on and has a wide range of applications. The A* algorithm is a classic way to solve the path planning problem, able to give the optimal path within a relatively short period. However, in some situations, the A* algorithm requires a long time to find the solution. In the weighted A* algorithm, a weight factor w is introduced to enlarge the role of heuristic estimation in the algorithm, allowing a faster searching process while giving back a path of acceptable length. In the experiment, the weighted A* algorithm was run multiple times under different values of w in two different maps to evaluate the influence of w on the final result and the algorithm’s performance in different conditions. It was found that with a weight factor > 1, generally, the path length became longer, and computational time became quicker. The research illustrates the influence of the value of w in the weighted A* algorithm, allowing people to adjust the value of w that well meets their demands.