Sobel Potential Field: Addressing Responsive Demands for UAV Path Planning Techniques
Dealing with the trade-off challenge between computation speed and path quality has been a high-priority research area in the robotic path planning field during the last few years. Obtaining a shorter optimized path requires additional processing since iterative algorithms are adopted to keep enhanc...
| Main Authors: | , , , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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MDPI AG
2022-06-01
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| Series: | Drones |
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| Online Access: | https://www.mdpi.com/2504-446X/6/7/163 |
| _version_ | 1797433705019473920 |
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| author | Raouf Fareh Mohammed Baziyad Tamer Rabie Ibrahim Kamel Maamar Bettayeb |
| author_facet | Raouf Fareh Mohammed Baziyad Tamer Rabie Ibrahim Kamel Maamar Bettayeb |
| author_sort | Raouf Fareh |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Dealing with the trade-off challenge between computation speed and path quality has been a high-priority research area in the robotic path planning field during the last few years. Obtaining a shorter optimized path requires additional processing since iterative algorithms are adopted to keep enhancing the final optimized path. Therefore, it is a challenging problem to obtain an optimized path in a real-time manner. However, this trade-off problem becomes more challenging when planning a path for an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) system since they operate in 3D environments. A 3D map will naturally have more data to be processed compared to a 2D map and thus, processing becomes more expensive and time-consuming. This paper proposes a new 3D path planning technique named the Sobel Potential Field (SPF) technique to deal effectively with the swiftness-quality trade-off. The rationale of the proposed SPF technique is to minimize the processing of potential field methods. Instead of applying the potential field analysis on the whole 3D map which could be a very expensive operation, the proposed SPF technique will tend to focus on obstacle areas. This is done by adopting the Sobel edge detection technique to detect the 3D edges of obstacles. These edges will be the sources of the repulsive forces while the goal point will be emitting an attractive force. Next, a proposed objective function models the strength of the attractive and repulsive forces differently to have various influences on each point on the map. This objective function is then optimized using Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) to find an obstacle-free path to the destination. Finally, the PSO-based path is optimized further by finding linear shortcuts in the path. Testbed experimental results have proven the effectiveness of the proposed SPF technique and showed superior performance over other meta-heuristic optimization techniques, as well as popular path planning techniques such as A* and PRM. |
| first_indexed | 2024-03-09T10:20:48Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-ed9d6731dd074d62bb74d40364459105 |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 2504-446X |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-03-09T10:20:48Z |
| publishDate | 2022-06-01 |
| publisher | MDPI AG |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Drones |
| spelling | doaj.art-ed9d6731dd074d62bb74d403644591052023-12-01T22:04:29ZengMDPI AGDrones2504-446X2022-06-016716310.3390/drones6070163Sobel Potential Field: Addressing Responsive Demands for UAV Path Planning TechniquesRaouf Fareh0Mohammed Baziyad1Tamer Rabie2Ibrahim Kamel3Maamar Bettayeb4Electrical Engineering Department, University of Sharjah, Sharjah 27272, United Arab EmiratesResearch Institute of Sciences and Engineering, University of Sharjah, Sharjah 27272, United Arab EmiratesComputer Engineering Department, University of Sharjah, Sharjah 27272, United Arab EmiratesComputer Engineering Department, University of Sharjah, Sharjah 27272, United Arab EmiratesElectrical Engineering Department, University of Sharjah, Sharjah 27272, United Arab EmiratesDealing with the trade-off challenge between computation speed and path quality has been a high-priority research area in the robotic path planning field during the last few years. Obtaining a shorter optimized path requires additional processing since iterative algorithms are adopted to keep enhancing the final optimized path. Therefore, it is a challenging problem to obtain an optimized path in a real-time manner. However, this trade-off problem becomes more challenging when planning a path for an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) system since they operate in 3D environments. A 3D map will naturally have more data to be processed compared to a 2D map and thus, processing becomes more expensive and time-consuming. This paper proposes a new 3D path planning technique named the Sobel Potential Field (SPF) technique to deal effectively with the swiftness-quality trade-off. The rationale of the proposed SPF technique is to minimize the processing of potential field methods. Instead of applying the potential field analysis on the whole 3D map which could be a very expensive operation, the proposed SPF technique will tend to focus on obstacle areas. This is done by adopting the Sobel edge detection technique to detect the 3D edges of obstacles. These edges will be the sources of the repulsive forces while the goal point will be emitting an attractive force. Next, a proposed objective function models the strength of the attractive and repulsive forces differently to have various influences on each point on the map. This objective function is then optimized using Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) to find an obstacle-free path to the destination. Finally, the PSO-based path is optimized further by finding linear shortcuts in the path. Testbed experimental results have proven the effectiveness of the proposed SPF technique and showed superior performance over other meta-heuristic optimization techniques, as well as popular path planning techniques such as A* and PRM.https://www.mdpi.com/2504-446X/6/7/163path planningobjective functionsobeledge detectionUAV |
| spellingShingle | Raouf Fareh Mohammed Baziyad Tamer Rabie Ibrahim Kamel Maamar Bettayeb Sobel Potential Field: Addressing Responsive Demands for UAV Path Planning Techniques Drones path planning objective function sobel edge detection UAV |
| title | Sobel Potential Field: Addressing Responsive Demands for UAV Path Planning Techniques |
| title_full | Sobel Potential Field: Addressing Responsive Demands for UAV Path Planning Techniques |
| title_fullStr | Sobel Potential Field: Addressing Responsive Demands for UAV Path Planning Techniques |
| title_full_unstemmed | Sobel Potential Field: Addressing Responsive Demands for UAV Path Planning Techniques |
| title_short | Sobel Potential Field: Addressing Responsive Demands for UAV Path Planning Techniques |
| title_sort | sobel potential field addressing responsive demands for uav path planning techniques |
| topic | path planning objective function sobel edge detection UAV |
| url | https://www.mdpi.com/2504-446X/6/7/163 |
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