Lee path replanner for partially-known environments

Abstract

This paper presents a new routing algorithm based on Lee's algorithm. The latter was developed with view to designing printed circuit boards (PCB). It can also be adapted for seeking collisionless routes for unmanned vehicles moving in an unknown environment. Such routes need to be updated on-the-fly, taking into account changes in the environment, e.g. moving obstacles, newly detected objects. The proposed algorithm uses results from the calculations carried out in the previous steps. Hence, computations in the following steps are only required for the areas that were subject to change. Tests showed that the presented route replanner is, on average, twice as fast as Lee's algorithm. © 2012 Springer-Verlag.