• Journal of the Korean Society for Aviation and Aeronautics
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• v.27 no.2
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• pp.1-8
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• 2019

Optimal path planning refers to find the safe route to the destination at a low cost, is a major problem with regard to autonomous navigation. Sampling Based Planning(SBP) approaches, such as Rapidly-exploring Random Tree Star($RRT^*$), are the most influential algorithm in path planning due to their relatively small calculations and scalability to high-dimensional problems. $RRT^*$-Smart introduced path optimization and biased sampling techniques into $RRT^*$ to increase convergent rate. This paper presents an improvement plan that has changed the biased sampling method to increase the initial convergent rate of the $RRT^*$-Smart, which is specified as m$RRT^*$-Smart. With comparison among $RRT^*$, $RRT^*$-Smart and m$RRT^*$-Smart in 2 & 3-D environments, m$RRT^*$-Smart showed similar or increased initial convergent rate than $RRT^*$ and $RRT^*$-Smart.

• Journal of Information Processing Systems
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• v.16 no.6
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• pp.1324-1342
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• 2020

Various modified algorithms of rapidly-exploring random tree (RRT) have been previously proposed. However, compared to the RRT algorithm for collision avoidance with global and static obstacles, it is not easy to find a collision avoidance and local path re-planning algorithm for dynamic obstacles based on the RRT algorithm. In this study, we propose boundary-RRT*, a novel-algorithm that can be applied to aerial vehicles for collision avoidance and path re-planning in a three-dimensional environment. The algorithm not only bounds the configuration space, but it also includes an implicit bias for the bounded configuration space. Therefore, it can create a path with a natural curvature without defining a bias function. Furthermore, the exploring space is reduced to a half-torus by combining it with simple right-of-way rules. When defining the distance as a cost, the proposed algorithm through numerical analysis shows that the standard deviation (σ) approaches 0 as the number of samples per unit time increases and the length of epsilon ε (maximum length of an edge in the tree) decreases. This means that a stable waypoint list can be generated using the proposed algorithm. Therefore, by increasing real-time performance through simple calculation and the boundary of the configuration space, the algorithm proved to be suitable for collision avoidance of aerial vehicles and replanning of local paths.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.51 no.3
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• pp.825-836
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• 2019

One of the most challenging safety precautions for workers in dynamic, radioactive environments is avoiding radiation sources and sustaining low exposure. This paper presents a sampling-based algorithm, DL-RRT*, for minimum dose walk-path re-planning in radioactive environments, expedient for occupational workers in nuclear facilities to avoid unnecessary radiation exposure. The method combines the principle of random tree star ($RRT^*$) and $D^*$ Lite, and uses the expansion strength of grid search strategy from $D^*$ Lite to quickly find a high-quality initial path to accelerate convergence rate in $RRT^*$. The algorithm inherits probabilistic completeness and asymptotic optimality from $RRT^*$ to refine the existing paths continually by sampling the search-graph obtained from the grid search process. It can not only be applied to continuous cost spaces, but also make full use of the last planning information to avoid global re-planning, so as to improve the efficiency of path planning in frequently changing environments. The effectiveness and superiority of the proposed method was verified by simulating radiation field under varying obstacles and radioactive environments, and the results were compared with $RRT^*$ algorithm output.

• The Journal of Korea Robotics Society
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• v.14 no.4
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• pp.285-292
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• 2019

Path planning is an important problem to solve in robotics and there has been many related studies so far. In the previous research, we proposed the Heterogeneous-Ants-Based Path Planner (HAB-PP) for the global path planning of mobile robots. The conventional path planners using grid map had discrete state transitions that constrain the only movement of an agent to multiples of 45 degrees. The HAB-PP provided the smoother path using the heterogeneous ants unlike the conventional path planners based on Ant Colony Optimization (ACO) algorithm. The planner, however, has the problem that the optimization of the path once found is fast but it takes a lot of time to find the first path to the goal point. Also, the HAB-PP often falls into a local optimum solution. To solve these problems, this paper proposes an improved ant-inspired path planner using the Rapidly-exploring Random Tree-star ($RRT^*$). The key ideas are to use $RRT^*$ as the characteristic of another heterogeneous ant and to share the information for the found path through the pheromone field. The comparative simulations with several scenarios verify the performance of the improved HAB-PP.