MATLAB Simulation of Path Planning and Obstacle Avoidance Problem in Mobile Robot using SA, PSO and FA

In Robotics, Path Planning and Obstacle Avoidance (PPOA) have turned out to be a significant research domain. PPOA entails planning a smooth obstacle-free path from start to finish in minimal time and cost. As the complexity of the map or problem increases, many approaches become unreliable and inefficient. In this paper, a comparison of Simulated Annealing (SA), Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) and Firefly Algorithm (FA) are made on MATLAB 2018a for PPOA problem in robotics based on three different environments. The objective of the paper is to practically demonstrate a comparison of the algorithms mentioned above on three maps with varying levels of complexity to obtain a collision-free optimal path through simulation on MATLAB 2018a. Simulation results depict that one algorithm is not suitable for all types of environments.