Title: Study on the local path planning for intelligent vehicles based on an improved VFH method

Authors: Yingwei Yan; Yu Du; Wenan Zhou

Addresses: College of Information Technology, Beijing Union University, China ' College of Information Technology, Beijing Union University, China ' School of Computer Science and Technology, Beijing University of Post and Telecommunication, China

Abstract: A local path planning method has been proposed and implemented for intelligent vehicles, the vector field histogram sharp (VFH#). In this study, an intelligent vehicle was made to manoeuvre through obstacles by the VFH# method. This local path planning method is the result of an improvement on a method called vector field histogram (VFH). The VFH method is sensitive to the threshold value for determining candidate sectors. And it is difficult for an intelligent vehicle to travel through narrow corridors by the VFH method. The VFH# method enlarges obstacles to avoid collisions. And it designs a new means of acquiring the magnitude of obstacle vector to eliminate sensitivity. In each sector, it chooses the largest magnitude as the resistance value among obstacle vectors. The method is applied on an electric vehicle to verify the performance; and it achieves an excellent result.

Keywords: local path planning; vector field histogram sharp; VFH#; intelligent vehicle.

DOI: 10.1504/IJES.2018.095747

International Journal of Embedded Systems, 2018 Vol.10 No.6, pp.445 - 452

Received: 10 Feb 2015
Accepted: 06 Sep 2015
Published online: 22 Oct 2018 *

Full-text access for editors Full-text access for subscribers Purchase this article Comment on this article