Research on Path Planning Method for Autonomous Patrol Robots

For autonomous patrol robots, how to complete multi-point path planning efficiently is a crucial challenge. To address this issue, this work proposes a practical and efficient path planning method for patrol robots. Firstly, the evaluation function of the traditional A* method is improved to ensure that the planned path maintains a safe distance from the obstacles. Secondly, a Dubins curve is used to optimize the planned path to minimize the number of turning points while adhering to kinematic constraints. Thirdly, a trajectory-preserving strategy is proposed to preserve the continuous trajectory, linking multi-points for future inspection tasks. Finally, the proposed method is validated through both simulation and real-world experiments. Experimental results demonstrate that our proposed method performs exceptionally well in terms of safety, actual trajectory distance, and total execution efficiency.