An extended virtual force field based behavioral fusion with neural networks and evolutionary programming for mobile robot navigation

A local navigation algorithm for mobile robots is proposed, based on the new extended virtual force field (EVFF) concept, neural network-based fusion for the three primitive behaviors generated by the EVFF, and the evolutionary programming-based optimization of the neural network weights. Furthermore, a multi-network version of the above neurally-combined EVFF has been proposed that lends itself not only to an efficient architecture but also to a greatly enhanced generalization capability. These techniques have been verified through both simulation and real experiments under a collection of complex environments.