An Improved Real-Time Path Planning Method Based on Dragonfly Algorithm for Heterogeneous Multi-Robot System

Heterogeneous multi-robot system is one of the most important research directions in the robotic field. Real-time path planning for heterogeneous multi-robot system under unknown 3D environment is a new challenging research and a hot spot in this field. In this paper, an improved real-time path planning method is proposed for a heterogeneous multi-robot system, which is composed of many unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and unmanned ground vehicles (UGVs). In the proposed method, the 3D environment is modelled as a neuron topology map, based on the grid method combined with the bio-inspired neural network. Then a new 3D dynamic movement model for multi-robots is established based on an improved Dragonfly Algorithm (DA). Thus, the movements of the robots are optimized according to the activities of the neurons in the bio-inspired neural network to realize the real-time path planning. Furthermore, some simulations have been carried out. The results show that the proposed method can effectively guide the heterogeneous UAV/UGV system to the target, and has better performance than traditional methods in the real-time path planning tasks.