Autonomous Locomotive Robot Path Planning on the Basis of Machine Learning

As already clear from the title, this dissertation deals with autonomous locomotive robot path planning, based on machine learning. Robot path planning task is to find a path from initial to target position without collision with obstacles so that the cost of the path is minimized. Autonomous robot is such a machine which is able to perform tasks completely independently even in environments with dynamic changes. Path planning in dynamic partially known environment is a difficult problem. Autonomous robot ability to adapt its behavior to changes in the environment can be ensured by using machine learning methods. In the field of path planning the mostly used methods of machine learning are case based reasoning, neural networks, reinforcement learning, swarm intelligence and genetic algorithms. The first part of this thesis introduces the current state of research in the field of path planning. Overview of methods is focused on basic omnidirectional robots and robots with differential constraints. In the thesis, several methods of path planning for omnidirectional robot and robot with differential constraints are proposed. These methods are mainly based on case-based reasoning and genetic algorithms. All proposed methods were implemented in simulation applications. Results of experiments carried out in these applications are part of this work. For each experiment, the results are analyzed. The experiments show that the proposed methods are able to compete with commonly used methods, because they perform better in most cases