Title: Finding the optimal path in a 3D environment with predefined obstacles

Authors: Gabriel Mansour; Ilias Chouridis; Apostolos Tsagaris

Addresses: Department of Design and Structures, Polytechnic School of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Thessaloniki, Greece ' Department of Industrial Engineering and Management, International Hellenic University, Thessaloniki, Greece ' Department of Industrial Engineering and Management, International Hellenic University, Thessaloniki, Greece

Abstract: Robotics has substantially improved people's daily lives, especially industrial production and manufacturing. An offline programming method is proposed for robot's path planning in a 3D environment with obstacles. The purpose of this method is to find the shortest 3D path between two or more points avoiding obstacles. Two types of paths are created: in the first type, the shortest path between the points is created based on their input order; in the second type, the shortest path that connects the input points is formed. It is accomplished by using a hybrid algorithm that combines the ant colony optimisation algorithm with a genetic algorithm called the roulette wheel method. The proposed method takes into consideration the robot's capabilities and the variability of different environments, so that it can be effectively applied to a multitude of cases. The method has been tested and applied to real world industrial robots successfully.

Keywords: robotics; industrial robotics; hybrid algorithm; ant colony optimisation; genetic algorithm; offline programming; path planning; 3D environment; industrial robot navigation; mechatronic system.

DOI: 10.1504/IJAMECHS.2024.137560

International Journal of Advanced Mechatronic Systems, 2024 Vol.11 No.1, pp.50 - 62

Received: 04 Jun 2023
Accepted: 04 Dec 2023
Published online: 25 Mar 2024 *

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