Path Planning of Autonomous Mobile Robots Based on an Improved Slime Mould Algorithm

Abstract

Path planning is a crucial component of autonomous mobile robot (AMR) systems. The slime mould algorithm (SMA), as one of the most popular path-planning approaches, shows excellent performance in the AMR field. Despite its advantages, there is still room for SMA to improve due to the lack of a mechanism for jumping out of local optimization. This means that there is still room for improvement in the path planning of ARM based on this method. To find shorter and more stable paths, an improved SMA, called the Lévy flight-rotation SMA (LRSMA), is proposed. LRSMA utilizes variable neighborhood Lévy flight and an individual rotation perturbation and variation mechanism to enhance the local optimization ability and prevent falling into local optimization. Experiments in varying environments demonstrate that the proposed algorithm can generate the ideal collision-free path with the shortest length, higher accuracy, and robust stability.