Optimal Path Planning for Mobile Robot Navigation Using FA-TPM in Cluttered Dynamic Environments

Mobile Robot Navigation(MRN) in moving obstacles environment is a very difficult research area in field of robotics. Nowadays, mostly Nature-inspired algorithms are used methods used for autonomous MRN. Many algorithms in MRN are developed by simulating the swarm behavior of various creatures like ants, fireflies, honey bees, cuckoos, spider monkeys, whales and the outcomes are very motivating. The paper presents an hybrid of Firefly algorithm (FA)along with Three Path Method (TPM) in [35] for MRN in cluttered dynamic environment. TPM check the free path in the environment and whenever all the paths are blocked by obstacles, FA is used for avoiding obstacles. The key concept of the proposed method is the searching of brighter firefly from the groups. Several experiments are performed by considering two environments to validate the performance of the proposed hybrid method and the results are compared with existing navigation methods. It is observed that the proposed hybrid method shows superior performance in terms of reduced path length and lower computational cost.