An Entropy-Based Path Planning Method for Crowd Evacuation in Complex Environments

In emergencies, leaders play a crucial role in providing evacuation guidance for pedestrians. Planning an effective path for leaders is imperative, but the closest path to the exit may not always be the most optimal. Additionally, it is essential to consider the state distribution of pedestrians. This paper introduces an entropy-based method for path planning during crowd evacuation in complex environments. First, key nodes are extracted according to the room structure, the initial leader position is determined using the maximum entropy covering method, and the evacuation priority is assigned based on the calculated urgency. An exit selection algorithm is then presented, wherein each leader selects the optimal exit as the destination according to their priority. Finally, an enhanced A* algorithm is introduced, incorporating evacuation entropy to devise the optimal evacuation guidance path for leaders. The simulation environment built by Anylogic serves to validate the efficacy of both the exit selection strategy and the enhanced path planning algorithm.