Safe Mobile Robot Path Planning Based on an Improved JPS Algorithm

Jump point search algorithm is an improved A * algorithm aiming at the problem in the computation, where the quality of path is not considered and even shows worse performance in security than traditional A * because of the rules imported to speed up the path-finding procedure. This paper proposed an algorithm to improve the security and smoothness of path planned by jump point search algorithm with the modification of its pruning rules. This improved way is not only based on the conceptions of JPS, but also combined with the method to achieve similar improvements of traditional A *, which was realized by a modified evaluation function and recursive check of nodes. To prove the improvements of path quality and consistent performance in computation time, simulation is carried out in grid map. The result demonstrates that the improved jump point search algorithm could effectively increase the quality of the final path especially in security, while the performance in speed of the proposed method is as good as the original jump point search algorithm and much more effective than A *.