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The artificial potential field (APF) is an important method for robot path planning. However, some information in APF is not fully utilized in practical applications. In this paper, an improved artificial potential field (IAPF) method is presented, in which the local path information is defined and used. And the calculation formulas for various forces in IAPF are given, which include repulsive force (R-force) of obstacle on the robot, the attractive force (A-force) of target on the robot, and the resultant force of R-force and A-force. Then, based on the local path information, a method for solving the robot falling into local optimality problem is proposed and used into IAPF. Finally, IAPF is respectively simulated and discussed in general scenario, complex scenario, and scenarios with the same and different size of circular obstacles. The results show that IAPF has higher efficiency than traditional artificial potential field (TAPF) method and can overcome the local optimality problem. At the same time, IAPF is compared with dynamic window method in the scenarios with the same and different size of circular obstacles. The results show that IAPF is more efficient than the dynamic window approach (DWA) for robot path planning.
Ren et al. (Sun,) studied this question.