Path planning for autonomous mobile robot using the Potential Field method

This paper deals with the navigation of a mobile robot in cluttered environment. It presents in particular an approach based on the Potential Field method. This approach is widespread in the area of path planning thanks to its smartness mathematical analysis. Its mechanism is to consider the robot as a particle plunged in a force field. Thus, the robot will be attracted by an attractive force created by the target and repelled by a repulsive force created by the obstacles. Simulation results implemented with matlab show the performance of this approach in cluttered environment with spherical obstacles.