Multiresolution path planning with wavelets: A local replanning approach

A path planning algorithm based on multiresolution cell decomposition of the environment using wavelets is proposed. The environment is assumed to be given by an occupancy grid at fine resolution. The algorithm constructs a cell decomposition at several levels of resolution (cell sizes) and constructs an optimal path to the destination from the current location of the agent. At each step the algorithm iteratively refines a coarse approximation to the path through local replanning. The replanning process uses previous information to refine the original cell channel in the immediate area of the path. This is done efficiently using the wavelet coefficients. Numerical tests show a speed-up of an order of magnitude over the baseline algorithm with minimal impact on the overall optimality of the resulting path. A comparative study with the well-known D* algorithm is also provided.