International Journal of Intelligent Robotics and Applications

https://doi.org/10.1007/s41315-020-00129-0

REGULAR PAPER

Path planning for robots: an elucidating draft

Kaushlendra Sharma1 · Rajesh Doriya1

Received: 22 January 2020 / Accepted: 3 April 2020

© Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2020

Abstract
Proceeding for an elucidating draft for the robot’s path planning, there are several aspects which need to be addressed and
discuss in detail. Some key points include the definition of the working environment, type of technique used to solve a par-
ticular type of problem, their subclassification and interdependencies with each other. It is also required to discuss in detail
to understand and solve the problem of path planning in the right perspective. To do so, this paper presents the evolution of
path planning algorithms of the last 5 decades, and then a broad classification of all those algorithms. After that, algorithms
are categorized into different sections and has been discussed which are very often used in recent times to make the path
planning approach more effective and efficient. This paper presents an extensive and elaborative survey of path planning
algorithms and associated techniques for robots whose excellent contribution to the filed is invaluable. There are multiple
issues related to the working environment of robots, whether it belongs to the two dimensional or three dimensional, static
or dynamic, single robot or multi-robot, single objective/multi-objective and many more. This paper addresses all these
issues in a detailed way. Another critical issue is related to the scope of algorithms which has been discussed at length in this
paper like whether the algorithm is compatible for global/local path planning, it is Exact or heuristic in nature. This issue
is systematically and hierarchically described to get a clear understanding of the problem domain. The effort is to bring an
insight into the classification and evolution of path planning algorithms with its technical detail and discussions. The paper
presents some emerging technologies which can be clubbed with robots to take it to another level. Cloud computing is one
which is being extensively absorbed in many technologies. This paper discusses some cloud platforms like OpenStack and
Google Cloud to deploy path planning applications for robots. This paper tries explicitly to conclude by testing path plan-
ning robots using Google cloud platform (using it as Infrastructure as a Service IaaS) citing its advantages and capability to
expand its acceptability and assumes to be the future scope for robot path planning.

Keywords Global · Local · Static · Dynamic · Path planning · Exact · Heuristics · Cloud computing

1 Introduction procedures defined to compute path are typically segregated

Path Planning is considered to be one of the cores primitive
in robotics for finding a route to be picked up for reaching
goal position. Path planning meant to be finding the best
path in terms of the time it takes to reach its goal and the
time it yields to compute that path. All the techniques and
Fully documented templates are available in the elsarticle package
on CTAN.
* Kaushlendra Sharma
ksharma.phd2017.it@nitrr.ac.in
Rajesh Doriya
rajeshdoriya.it@nitrr.ac.in
1
Department of Information Technology, National Institute
of Technology Raipur, Raipur, India
based on the traversing mechanism of a particular algorithm
for the image or graph given as input to the system. This
particular image or graph is also called as the environmental
setup/configuration space. There are several other aspects
which need to be considered for deciding the best path or
optimal path. It also depends on the environmental setup or
execution area where the path needs to be discovered for
executing a certain task. In some cases, there might be one
single objective and which can be in the centre for execu-
tion, whereas there are certain situations where more than
one objective needs to be accomplished, and therefore the
execution has to be moulded (Liu et al. 2018; Artuñedo et al.
2018) accordingly.
To get detail in-depth understanding of the problem and
its solutions. Let us first know the history of path planning. It

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is development and the inception of robots. One of the glori-
ous histories regarding robots is the invention of program-
mable robots named ‘Unimate’ in 1961 which lifted a metal
piece, from there on there was continual development took
place at a rapid pace. Path planning word came into exist-
ence with the commencement of robots, though the debut
of robots was far older and was very much debated in the
first half of the 20th century. The features of robots or robot-
ics developed with each passing year, path planning is one
among them, which was lauded and experimented hugely,
a recent addition is the use of cloud computing platforms
(Kehoe et al. 2015). Computational development started in
the second half of the twentieth century.
Path planning can be studied in details by considering the
scenario as much as possible. This paper presents the dif-
ferent types of environments, generally being considered for
path planning problems. First one complies the environment
based on the nature of obstacles, i.e., Static environment/
Dynamic environment and then the environment based on
geographical conditions are some critical areas where sev-
eral different techniques have been applied in the past (Drake
et al. 2018; Sun and Yu 2017). Fulfilling Single objective or
multi-objective in an environment could be another area of
research. There are also some cases where more than one
objective has to be fulfilled for satisfying the overall objec-
tives. This article has tried to cover all those aspects in lit-
erature and experiment section.
While dealing with the environmental setup, there are
many aspects and ways to study the path planning problem
(Zhang et al. 2017). Broadly it is subdivided into the study
of the static region and dynamic region. Also, the research
is being laid out regarding the 2-D and 3-D environment,
Fig. 1 represents different path planning environments with
their inclusions and exclusions with other environments,
Fig. 1 demonstrates that local path planning and global
path planning which can be understood as unique entity and
fall both in static path planning as well as dynamic path
planning. In contrast, these two broad path planning envi-
ronment comes under both the two-dimensional as well as
three-dimensional environment, the classification and inter-
linkage path planning environments is depicted in the Venn
diagram. Local path planning means the robot is having the
knowledge of a restricted environment which comes under
its sensor range or up to a precisely defined radius. Global
path planning means the robot before its actual run is having
the complete knowledge of the entire environment. Static
or Dynamic environment is classified based on the nature
of obstacles lying in the environment, if all the obstacles
present is immovable, then the environment can be called
as static environment, and if it is changing its location ran-
domly then that would be treated as the dynamic environ-
ment. Next most important issue is to understand the concept
of path planning for robots.
13
K. Sharma, R. Doriya
Fig. 1  Venn diagram representing environmental classification of
path planning problems
After knowing the details about the environment, the
next important thing to understand is the traversing mecha-
nism. Traversing the given environment results into the path
length, computation time and computational complexity,
these variables decide the suitability of several algorithms in
a particular environment. The paper entails all the requisites
of these two parameters in the experimental setup and result
section. Setting up the environment is also crucial where the
algorithm has to perform for finding path, and that can also
be subdivided into a static and dynamic environment.
The survey of path planning is organized in this paper
into five different sections with subsections in it, the evolu-
tion of path planning techniques is presented in detail, the
next sections give an insight to some critical nature-inspired
algorithms used in the past and recent times for robot path
planning, after that the following sections cite some nota-
ble algorithms contribution in the field. After that, the next
section describes the recent contributions, and in the last
section path planning using cloud computing platform is
discussed in detail. The paper also presents the practical
approach towards using cloud computing platform for robot
path planning and displays the result in one section by using
Google Cloud as IaaS. Finally, the paper concludes the sum-
mary and recommendations for future work based on the
study and survey done for robot path planning.
2 Evolution of path planning techniques
Table 1 presents the evolution of path planning algo-
rithms. The survey considered the research papers from
1970 to 2019, covering almost 50 years. To survey and
summarize the work done in the last 5 decades is quite a
lengthy task. To do so a block of 10 years is first taken into
Path planning for robots: an elucidating draft

Table 1  Evolution of path planning techniques over the years

Approach/year References Single robot Multi robot Static/dynamic Local path Global path 2D/3D space R.I

Artificial Neural Net- Martin and Del Pobil ✓ Static ✓ 2D 09

work, 1970 (1970)
Multi Resolution A* Autere and Lehtinen ✓ Static ✓ 2D 01
Method, 1970 (1970)
Travelling Salesmen Lin and Kernighan ✓ Dynamic ✓ 2D 4465
problem, 1973 (1973)
Navigation for JPL Thompson (1977) ✓ Dynamic ✓ 3D 191
robot, 1977
Real Time Obstacle Khatib (1986) ✓ ✓ Dynamic ✓ 2D 7747
Avo., 1986
Multi-Reso. Path Plan- Kambhampati and Davis ✓ Static ✓ 2D 731
ning, 1986 (1986)
Artificial Potential Field, Warren (1989) ✓ Static ✓ 2D 339
1989
New Heuristics Algo- Zhu and Latombe ✓ Static ✓ 2D 236
rithms, 1989 (1989)
Using Laplace’s equa- Connolly et al. (1990) ✓ Static ✓ 3D 735
tion,1990
Numerical Potential Barraquand et al. (1992) ✓ Static ✓ 2D 1137
Field, 1992
Genetic Algorithm, 1997 Han et al. (1997) ✓ Dynamic ✓ 2D 98
Probabilistic Roadmap, Kavraki et al. (1996) ✓ Static ✓ 2D 5050
1996
Evo. Artificial Potential, Vadakkepat et al. (2000) ✓ Static ✓ 2D 346
2000
Rapidly Random Tree, Kuffner and LaValle ✓ Dynamic ✓ ✓ 3D 2532
2000 (2000)
Particle Swarm Optimi- Saska et al. (2006) ✓ Dynamic ✓ 2D 148
zation, 2006
Ant Colony Optimiza- Garcia et al. (2009) ✓ Static ✓ 2D 320
tion, 2009
Sampling Based Algo- Karaman and Frazzoli ✓ Static ✓ 2D 2037
rithms, 2011 (2011)
M* Path Planning Algo- Wagner and Choset ✓ Static ✓ 2D 131
rithm, 2011 (2011)
Hybrid ACO-GA Algo- Châari et al. (2012) ✓ Static ✓ 2D 57
rithm, 2012
Pigeon Inspired Optimi- Duan and Qiao (2014) ✓ Dynamic ✓ 3D 216
zation, 2014
Artificial Bee Colony, Contreras-Cruz et al. ✓ Static ✓ 2D 110
2015 (2015)
Bacteria Foraging Field, Hossain and Ferdous ✓ Dynamic ✓ 2D 91
2015 (2015)
Cuckoo Search Algo- Mohanty and Parhi ✓ Static ✓ 2D 60
rithm, 2016 (2016)
Gravitational Search Das et al. (2016) ✓ Static ✓ 2D 89
Algo., 2016
Fuzzy-Wind Driven Pandey and Parhi (2017) ✓ Dynamic ✓ 2D 44
Opti., 2017
Intelligent Bezier Tharwat et al. (2019) ✓ Static ✓ 2D 64
Method, 2019

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consideration and top four paper of each decade related
to path planning for robots, which were most cited by the
researchers and author’s is taken into account for setting
up a benchmark for further studies. Likewise, five differ-
ent blocks of 5 decades are prepared, starting from 1970
to 2019. Each paper considered for a respective decade is
then thoroughly studied based on following points: sin-
gle/multi-robot, static/dynamic environment, local/global
path planning, 2D/3D space, number of citation each paper
received. Distinguishing the paper based on these points
helps to find out that the focus of path planning algorithms
that the emphasis was on which particular field and in that
time.
The first column of the Table mentions the name of the
algorithm/technique, the citation adjacent to it refers to the
base paper of that algorithm considered for the study. The
next column shows the year of publication of that paper.
The next two-column is named as single robot/multi-robot,
a checkmark sign is used in the entire Table to show whether
a particular algorithm is applicable for that column or not,
single robot/multi-robot column represents that the algo-
rithm, in particular, is being applied or used for a single
robot application or a team of robots (more than a single
robot). This concept again subdivides in its own like a robot
or multi robots are deployed to accomplish a single task or
has to serve multiple objectives in an environment or simu-
lation. Next three columns represent the environments. The
definition of each type of environment is already discussed
in the above section. The last column shows the number of
citations each paper has received; this is one of the essential
and unique features this paper has considered, just to show
the impact and acceptance of any algorithm.
Fig. 2  Graphical analysis of different areas of path planing techniques with its impact on each field and year wise impact on the respective field
(based on the research paper considered for this survey)
13
K. Sharma, R. Doriya
Figure 2 represents the bar graph based on the survey
paper mentioned in Table 1, and In the graph, the x-axis
represents the year a block of 10 years is taken to draw
the graph, each block comprises of at least 4–5 most cited
papers. The value at the top of each pillar is the aggregation
of citations papers has received during the year mentioned.
A pie chart has presented the graph in Fig. 2, it shows the
percentage weight of contribution made by the papers, i.e.,
on local/global path and single/multi-robot. The graph and
pie chart is prepared on the basis of the papers mentioned
in the Table 1.
3 Path planning algorithms
The next part of this intensive survey was to bring out a
detailed note of algorithms which attracted more attention
and had a broad impact on widening the field of robotics.
Last few decades had witnessed that much contribution is
made using nature-inspired algorithms. With the intention to
throw light on nature-inspired algorithms, this paper presents
the fundamental working principle of Ant Colony Optimiza-
tion, Bee Colony, Firefly Algorithm, Particle Swarm Opti-
mization, Bacteria Foraging, Cuckoo Search Algorithm and
BAT algorithm. The next section paper deal with some of
the prominent algorithms which are being observed multiple
times and a good number of advancements made on that, this
paper discusses A star (A*), Probabilistic Roadmap Planner
(PRM), Rapidly Exploring Random Tree (RRT) and D star
(D*) algorithm under notable contribution section. The next
section deals with some of the recent contributions on path
planning for robots in the recent years, this section includes
Path planning for robots: an elucidating draft
a detailed note on Parallel Evolutionary Artificial Field,
Potential Field Approach, Adapting Animal Motion Attrib-
utes, Heuristics Approaches in Path Planning. After that, the
next section deals with some cloud computing platforms.
4 Nature inspired algorithms
4.1 Ant colony
The ant colony optimization (ACO) (Brand et al. 2010) is
inspired by real-world behaviour of biological ants. It is a
meta-heuristic approach. Here meta-heuristic denotes the
ability to select, generate or find the solution of the optimi-
zation problem in the presence of incomplete information
and limited computational capacity. It is an optimization
technique based on swarm intelligent systems to optimize
the problems like nonlinear objective functions and net-
work routing in telecommunication networks In this ACO
algorithm, take a fixed size grid and define the initial and
the final position and also define the best point for the next
move. Pheromone (i.e. a secreted chemical factor that trig-
gers a social response in a member of the same species)
initialization plays a vital role in ACO algorithm. The phero-
mones in the networks are re-initialized after the obstacles
are added. There are two types of re-initialization schemes
first is global initialization In this procedure, pheromones
present in the complete region is reset to its initial phero-
mones level, while the second one is called as local ini-
tialization where the gradient of pheromones is initialized
around the object. Global initialization can capture infor-
mation of the entire environment, but local initialization
capture information of some limited range of environment.
With the help of that, we can find the shortest and collision-
free route in the grid network with avoiding all the obstacle
of various shapes and sizes. Some more work with recent
amendments is being utilized in the area of path planning
like in autonomous marine vehicles (Xiong et al. 2019) and
few more examples cited by Guan-Zheng et al. (2007) and
Mei et al. (2006).
4.2 Bee colony
It is an optimization technique proposed by Contreras-Cruz
et al. (2015) that triggers the look around the behaviour of
honey bees and used for solving the parametric optimization
problem.
It is the extension of the Genetic algorithm developed by
Fogel in which the structure of the program to improve is
fixed. It works in the makeup space. This proposed planning
system accomplishes its task in two steps. The initial step
is finding a collision-free path from source coordinates to
the goal coordinates in the available configuration space.
It is found out by the local search procedures which are
being governed by the principle of Bee colony algorithm
itself. Secondly, the minimization of the initial path is done
in terms of its length and fluency by using Evolutionary
programming. In the ABC algorithm, bees change the food
position along with time in the population of food position.
Employed bees are the bees which excavate for the new
food position by using its current food position. When an
employed bee could not enhance the food position in the
number of attempts, then it becomes a scout bee. Onlooker
bees take the data from the employed bees about the quan-
tity of nectar amount present in food positions and visits
that food position. The role of scout bees is to find a new,
randomly selected food position.
The evolutionary method starts by initializing the popu-
lation. The next step is to unmasking the population to the
environment and evaluate the fitness for each member. After
that change each parent and Evaluate parent and children.
Finally, pick out the members of the new population, and
this follows until any condition is fulfilled.
ABC-EP planner exhibit better performance in the sce-
narios without narrow corridors and less number of obsta-
cles in a large group of environment.The proposed method
results in deriving paths in minimum time in problems with
spread out obstacles on the map better than PRM. It is also
deployed in multi-robot path planning (Bhattacharjee et al.
2011; Liang and Lee 2015).
4.3 Firefly
In this algorithm, (Brand and Yu 2013) it can find an opti-
mal path in a dynamic environment. It also performs better
than Ant colony algorithm in terms of both path length and
computational cost. It is similar to ACO with some more
features. Here fitness function is used for glow-worms. The
firefly algorithm is based on three rules. First, all firefly is
unisex, so they attract each other. Second, the attractiveness
is the proposal to brightness level, so less bright firefly move
towards high brighter firefly. Third, the brightness deter-
mined by the objective function to be optimized. In order
to find the shortest path, one firefly is put on the starting
position, and other firefly placed on destination and put some
obstacle between them. After initialization, firefly moves
and converge to the optimal solution. The performance of
the firefly algorithm is the same when the workspace size
is small, and the firefly algorithm performs better when the
workspace size is increased. In two dimensional workspaces
for robot path planning, it is applied to find both the shortest
path and collision-free path (Fig. 3). Pavon et al. have pro-
posed the firefly algorithm for solving the multi-objective
problem of path planning for robots (Hidalgo-Paniagua et al.
2017). Some more reviews regarding the firefly algorithm
are presented by Ali et al. (2014).
13

4.4 PSO
In this algorithm, (Masehian and Sedighizadeh 2010) A
particle swarm optimization (PSO) algorithm is used for
global path planning, and a probabilistic roadmap method
(PRM) is used for obstacle avoidance. This algorithm is
used in order to find the shortest path and smoothest path
for robots moving in an environment where many obsta-
cles are present. This algorithm contains two components,
the first one is the PSO component which is used as the
global planner, and the second one is the modified PRM
component which is used as a local planner. The path
smoothness is measured using two objective functions are
incorporated in the PSO equation, the hypothetical lines
connecting two successive positions of robots and find the
difference between the angles to find its goal. The PSO
based robot path planning algorithm is used to find the
shortest path and the smoothest path. This algorithm gives
a new method to combine the PSO and PRM component
by combining four groups of nodes into one single popula-
tion. To solve the problem of path planning in a dynamic
environment is being proposed by Raja and Pugazhenthi
(2009) whereas to solve multi-objective, the solution is
proposed by Gong et al. (2011).
4.5 Bacteria foraging
In this algorithm (Hossain and Ferdous 2015), in bacte-
rial foraging technique navigation is used for correlation
of mobile robots. It has two main components localiza-
tion and path planning. Localization means the ability to
determine an accurate position, and path planning means
finding an optimal path for a computational purpose. In a
dynamic environment, the obstacle would be both static and
dynamic, but in a static environment, the obstacle would
be in a static position. Global path planning and local path
planning differs in terms of knowing the reference maps, in
global path planning the details of the reference map resides
with the robot, while in the latter one, details of reference
map remain unknown and it explores while traversing. So
robots need the capability to build a map. In order to find the
optimal path for a multi-robot, the environment should be
first constructed. The sensor is used to detect the obstacle,
and both obstacle and final state can be dynamic. After each
step robot finds a feasible path by avoiding an obstacle. This
program runs until the goal has been found. It is very much
helpful from the resource point of view in finding the solu-
tion for path navigation. It uses a nonlinear fitness function
for making decisions. It has the feature of motion planning.
For Multi-robot system bacteria foraging algorithm is pro-
posed by Liang et al. (2013). Some more review is presented
by Zafar and Mohanta (2018).
13
K. Sharma, R. Doriya
4.6 Cuckoo search
The cuckoo search algorithm is one of the highly proclaimed
algorithms for solving the problem of optimization. The
algorithm was initially proposed as a metaheuristic search
algorithm by Mohanty and Parhi (2016). The algorithm is
based on cuckoo’s egg-laying behaviour. In this process, the
bird cuckoo opts a smart way to preserve its egg from getting
mangled. It chooses other host bird’s nest to lay its egg on to
it. In the first step, each cuckoo is supposed to lay one egg.
The working principle of cuckoo search follows a three-
step procedure, in the first step each cuckoo is supposed
to lay one egg at one instance, in the next step, to place its
egg, it chooses some other cuckoo’s nest, assuming that the
number of nests is fixed in number, the best nest among all
other nests which consist of high-quality egg proceeds for
the next phase, the last step is to discover the egg by cuckoo
is being done using the probability. This concept is utilized
as a solution to the optimization problem and is also being
deployed in robot path planning.
The robot begins from a point and moves in the direc-
tion of goal point in a partially known environment with
fix obstacles and optimal path length. When the robot
approaches near the obstacle, robot sensor is used to identify
the obstacles then the cuckoo search algorithm is triggered
to avoid the obstacles and get the best next position to stay
clear from collision with obstacles from the goal point, each
available solution is bounded with a numeric value and the
good quality nest egg will lead to next generation. The ben-
efit of using the CS algorithm is that the number of param-
eters to be adjusted is less compared to the genetic algorithm
and particle swarm optimization. A detailed review of the
cuckoo search algorithm is presented by Fister et al. (2014)
(Fig. 4).
4.7 BAT
It is a metaheuristic algorithm presented by Gigras et al.
(2015) for global optimization and was inspired by echolo-
cation behaviour of microbats which has the ability to vary
their pulse rates of emission and loudness. Microbats have
the ability to produce sonar waves with which they could
encounter prey and obstacles. They emit the sonar waves
and wait for the reverberate of sound that comes back after
striking the prey are an obstacle. They have the ability to
differentiate their targets with the help of Doppler effect,
by combining all their senses to encounter the prey and its
navigation they only vary their loudness and frequency while
their velocity, position and frequency remains unmodified
In robot path planning robot, moves with angle theta and
distanced and for each move, its position is updated until it
encounters an obstacle. When a robot encounters an obsta-
cle, it pushes back some step and BAT algorithm initially
Path planning for robots: an elucidating draft
pulse rate, bat population, frequency, loudness, is defined
and distance is evaluated then the best position is selected
with respect to the minimum distance. After that frequency,
velocity, current position is updated, and the local best
solution is found.this procedure continues for each obstacle
encountered. Solutions for path planning UCAV is being
proposed by Wang et al. (2012, 2016). Recent modification
is being reported by Saraswathi et al. (2018)(Fig. 5).
4.8 Grey wolf
Grey wolf optimization algorithm is based on the princi-
ple of leadership hierarchy and hunting mechanism of the
grey wolf. Kumar et al. described the grey wolf optimiza-
tion algorithm for unnamed aerial vehicles. It is used to
find the optimal path in the presence of dynamic obstacles
(Radmanesh and Kumar 2016). There are four types of grey
wolves which are 𝛼 , 𝛽 , 𝛿 and 𝜔 , employed for simulating
the leadership hierarchy. The purpose of this algorithm is
not only to reach to its goal but also to avoid any obstacles
coming on the way of aircraft while approaching towards
the goal, also the obstacle in between are dynamic in nature.
UAV is equipped with ADS-B, which provides it with
the position of IAs. While entering into the periphery in an
unauthorized manner, the cell present near UAV would auto-
matically vary their load based on the probability values,
which indicates the risk of the collision inside the region.
The optimization process is achieved through a prede-
fined cost function. It is carried out using two modules the
first one includes the overall distance of the flight while the
other one consists of the safety measures, which is framed
as the weight of the cell indicating the risk involved of col-
lision. Risk function can be defined as the summation of the
complete path.
Weight of cell signifies the level of risk of collision of
that particular cell; it relies on the probability of collision
in three stages. The initial step is to find out the probabil-
ity of unauthorized inclusion of aircraft into the periphery,
the second step is to calculate the probability of reaching
towards the collision area and the last step is to calculate the
probability of region where UAV is about the approach in
few steps. Alpha is the best solution and also is the outcome
of the optimization process. Advantages of this algorithm
are that it provides an effective optimal solution for path
planning for different flight missions as compared to other
algorithms. A detailed review of Grey wolf algorithm is pre-
sented by Faris et al. (2018) while the recent modification is
reported by Heidari and Pahlavani (2017)(Fig. 6).
Nature-inspired algorithms are grabbing more attention
of researchers for solving the problem related to optimiza-
tion. Cuckoo search is well known for solving local minima
associated issues, whereas the ant colony optimization is
having the disadvantage of getting trapped into the local
minima related problems. Firefly algorithm, on the other
hand, is capable of solving problems in a dynamic environ-
ment. The algorithms discussed in this section are all helpful
in converging towards the solution at a good pace. There also
exist many hybrid approaches to solve a particular type of
problem. Here in this, we tried to put some well known and
well-adapted nature-inspired algorithms which are capable
of explaining various robots path planning issues.
5 Notable contribution
This section deals with algorithms which has mostly talked
about in the last few decades, several versions of these algo-
rithms are present in the field of robot path planning. The
reason to pick A*, PRM, RRT and D* is that it differs in
their primary traversing mechanism while deriving optimal
path from the source point to goal point. Table 2 presented
in the paper shows the comparison of these four algorithms
in terms of path length, time taken and no of moves using
maze reference map.
5.1 A* Algorithm
A* is one of the algorithms which is well known for find-
ing solutions with least probability of any collision in the
given workspace. It is one of the recognized and accepted
algorithms in many areas of pathfinding and graph traversal.
A right amount of work has been done using this algorithm
(Myint 2018), different versions of A* are also being used
in many fields like in vessel path planning (Liu et al. 2019),
modified versions for robot navigation and many more
(Duchoň et al. 2014). A* entirely relies on the heuristics
function for doing path planning, assuming that there is a
graph with multiple nodes, and there is a need to reach from
source to destination in the best optimal way, based on the
heuristic function. A* performs at each step and selects the
node according to a value say x, which is the sum of y and z.
Based on the least value obtained of x, it proceeds further.
x(n) = y(n) + z(n) (1)
Where n is the last selected node on the path, y(n) is the
value of the path obtained from the last value, and z(n) is the
heuristic function which calculates the minimum path cost
from n to the destination.
5.2 PRM
PRM works on the fundamental law for constructing paths.
To traverse from source point to goal point in the given
workspace PRM constructs a path using random points from
the workspace. There can be several methods to generate
13

a random point in a given specific area, python’s random
number generator for generating points is the one which
can be used (Kavraki et al. 1998). A sufficient number of
points need to be generated for building a valid path between
the source and goal, lacking for it may result in a fractured
graph which cannot be used for traversing. After selecting
any random point, the algorithm frames cluster and adds all
the nearby points into the cluster; it keeps on making clus-
ters of points based on the random samples obtained. Two
crucial things it performs are that, while framing clusters it
checks whether all the points belong to that specific radius
selected previously or not, second these clusters (nodes) are
added with increasing distance to reach towards goal. There
are two essential phases under which the working of PRM
relies upon, query phase and construction phase. The initial
point is given as input to the query phase based on which it
selects the next valid point from a given number of points
available in the workspace. The next phase is the construc-
tion phase, where a valid graph is built based on the random
points. Dijkstra’s algorithm is used for selecting the shortest
path among the valid paths obtained in the given workspace
or configuration area (Geraerts and Overmars 2004).
5.3 RRT​
It is a well-known algorithm in the area of path planning
(LaValle 1998; LaValle and Kuffner 2000). For finding a
path using the RRT algorithm, there must be a start point and
goal point given in the workspace. The start point is given
as input to the system based on which it starts building the
tree until the last node or goal node is reached. This method
is well known for fastly building its tree for finding paths.
Starting from the initial node, it starts creating a random
node in the workspace and based on the distance between
the nodes. It selects the node which is having a minimum
distance from this random node in the tree. The distance
between the nodes is already predefined and is called a step
size. One by one, these nodes are added to the tree, and the
process keeps on repeating until the goal point of avoiding
all obstacles (Karaman et al. 2011). The whole process, in
the end, forms a tree-like structure that’s why it is called
as rapidly exploring random tree algorithm. A smooth path
is traced for traversal from source to goal for robots in the
given workspace. Many other extended versions of RRT are
available for different applications (Hirakawa et al. 2019).
5.4 D* Algorithm
D star (Ferguson and Stentz 2007) is one of the incremental
search problem frequently used for solving the path planning
problem for robots. It was first introduced in the year 1994
by Anthony stentz, which was actually the advanced version
of A* that time or is also called as dynamic A*. It consists
13
K. Sharma, R. Doriya
of some unique features as it learns from its past execution,
and the second-best feature is that it looks for the goal quite
fast as compared to the other algorithms. It makes certain
assumptions whether there is any obstacle in the path or
not based on its learning and experience and approaches
towards the goal at a rapid pace. And all of a sudden, when
its assumption goes wrong, it adds up the information of
newly observed obstacles in its database and then replans
the new path. A different version (Stentz et al. 1995) of the
D* algorithm has been proposed in the past to overcome
this problem. The incremental heuristic search algorithm is
one which has an excellent contribution to solve the prob-
lem. Some well-known application benefited by D star are
autonomous vehicle navigation and for mobile robots.
6 Recent contribution
This section gives the detail of algorithms which were most
recently being applied in the area of path planning for robots
and is being extensively accepted by many applications of
robotics. Four algorithm is considered for discussion in the
following subsection.
6.1 Parallel evolutionary artificial field
Parallel evolutionary artificial field (Montiel et al. 2015)
evolved because the methods prior to this were using the
concept of the potential field which failed when dynamic
obstacles are present. This approach is used in case of com-
plex real-world situations with dynamic obstacles. It ensures
controllability in a dynamic environment which is not pro-
vided by the electrostatic potential field approach. This par-
ticular approach is capable of giving solutions to many path
planning problems be it a local path planning to global path
planning, it also performs very efficiently in case of on-line
global path planning problems, whereas, the electrostatic
potential approach is restricted to only some specific area of
path planning. The parallel evolutionary artificial potential
field method helps the single robot in identifying the path
from the initial state to goal state where the obstacles are
present in a dynamic environment. This approach uses the
concept of a potential field of charged particles. This method
ensures a faster and effective path for the robot. Considering
the obstacle to be present in L-shaped then in APF method
due to the repulsive methods the robot follows the longest
path whereas in this method the robot can move along the
edges of the obstacles thereby providing a better path in the
shortest time.
Path planning for robots: an elucidating draft
6.2 Potential field approach
The method of lach is applied when the obstacles are present
at various places. This method uses a potential function for
every obstacle (Bayat et al. 2018). The problem of path plan-
ning for single robots is present in an environment where
obstacles are scattered. In order to obtain an optimal path,
the concept of the potential field of the charged particles is
used. In this approach, an individual potential function is
allotted to the individual obstacles; all the obstacles are scat-
tered in the environment are integrated into a scalar potential
surface. An optimal path is basically obtained by following
the shortest path and also avoiding obstacles. The key fea-
ture of this approach is that the size, position, colour of the
obstacle does not influence this approach. If the informa-
tion about the environment is not known; it can be obtained
by digital image processing, then based on the intensity of
potential function for each obstacle exert the repulsive forces
and using this the robot reaches the goal state from the initial
state. Some of the applications which are being benefitted
by this approach are; dispatch of goods and materials to the
warehouse in the manufacturing unit and also to organize
them, handling the places where human involvement is risky,
guiding old helping age people.
6.3 Adapting animal motion attributes
In this approach, the proposed method helps human–robot
interactions (Kovács et al. 2016). It is well proficient in
performing in-line navigation when executed in dynamic
environments. People and insects live together, which helps
humans to interact and estimate insect movements easily.
The algorithm proposed based on this concept is the BUG
algorithm. This method has been developed to promote
human–robot interactions. The condition here is that if the
robot and potential field attain local minimum then, in that
case, the robot gets stopped and does not reach the final state.
This is the local minimum problem found in APF method. In
this mechanism, at one instance the AFP method is substi-
tuted by the BUG algorithm, and it saves the potential value
achieved by the local minimum at that instance. Following
this algorithm, the robot approaches the goal. After that,
the BUG algorithm converts back to APF when the poten-
tial of actual positions is lower than the potential that saved
in a local minimum. More similar approaches like genetic
algorithm and adaptive fuzzy-logic control are used for path
planning for robots (Bakdi et al. 2017).
6.4 Heuristics approaches in path planning
Heuristic functions (Mac et al. 2016) provide a solution
when it becomes difficult to reach the exact solution. It
explores the considerable gap between ‘0’ and ‘1’. There
is numerous membership function which is being preferred
and is suitable for solving many problems. Some of the well-
known techniques include the concept and model of ANN,
model Bio-inspired algorithms, a combination of two or
more approaches, fuzzy logic and many more. One of the
high points of this heuristic approach is that it is capable of
copying human tendency and adds emotional intelligence
to the approach; also, it learns from its experience. In recent
times bio-memetic algorithms have grabbed the attention
for robot navigation.
The algorithms like GA, PSO and ACO introduce the
applications of robot path planning. One of core method
known as Adaptive fuzzy logic is used for solving robots
path planning problem. The adaptive fuzzy logic control-
ler allows and tracks and minimize errors during trajectory
execution. The five-phase of the proposed algorithm for path
planning and obstacle avoidance include: phase 1—image
capturing, phase 2—compute three area map which includes
dangerous area, forbidden area, safe area, phase 3—compute
a collision-free path from source to target using genetic algo-
rithm (smoothed path), phase 4—carry out the smoothed
path using a fuzzy logic controller, phase 5—if the target
is found, then it stops, if the environment changes the algo-
rithm, begins from the first phase. The adaptive fuzzy logic
controller updates the velocities of the robot (right and left
velocities) quickly using wireless communication so that the
errors converge to zero.
7 Path planning for robots using clouds
Various challenges exist for service robots in unstructured
environments (Moreno et al. 2013) like the inability to
effectively interact and cope up with the unstructured envi-
ronment, this lead in creating the service robots which are
capable of handling human–related tasks that too with better
accuracy and reliability (Soliman et al. 2013). Typically the
robots possess less computation power and are inefficient
in handling big tasks. So, there is a requirement to offload
the computational complexity of the robot to some other
means. The cloud-based robot is a promising solution to the
problems with small robots as it helps in resource sharing
parallel computation and cost reduction. Some well known
and available cloud platforms include names like Microsoft
Azure, Zoho, Open-Nebula, Aneaka, IBM, Amazon etc.
Here we are including Open Stack and Google Cloud in dis-
cussion and tried Google Cloud for implementing path plan-
ning problem. The reason for selecting the Google Cloud
Computing Platform is that it is very economical from the
usage point of view and for initial level experiments, it is
less complicated and user-friendly.
Rapid Elasticity is one of the essential features which
makes the cloud more acceptable for many applications, The
13

requirement in terms of processing capabilities or storage
can be quickly provisioned and scaled in and out with the
minimal effort. Deployment of robots in some problematic
situation requires a sudden change in the processing require-
ment, which becomes complex when dealing with the indi-
vidual robot. This issue can be easily handled with the use
of cloud computing platforms.
Reliability is another fundamental aspect which is con-
sidered in any technologies. Reliability can be understood as
the mean time between failure and repair. The percentage of
this parameter should be high for getting it acceptable by any
application. Cloud computing platform ensures this feature
which makes it more lucrative to adopt it. Cloud platforms
are very tolerant as the presence of multiple servers supports
it to provide an error-free service on demand.
Response time is another metric which should be taken
care of, as the location of robots from the server and the
exchange of data or information taking place between them
with respect to time is essential to read. Reliability is one of
the parameters which is to be observed in every experiment,
and its values vary from application to application.
Efficiency or throughput is another crucial factor which
means the performance of a task by a computing service for
a particular interval of time. From the robotics prospect, it
would be on a positive side as to handle and monitor multi-
ple robots will be more accessible when they are governed
centrally. Single robots scenarios are required to test inde-
pendently for specific applications to check the performance
of efficiency.
Apart from the above four factors, there are several other
factors which makes cloud computing platform more accept-
able. The reason to move robots path planning to cloud is
that in term of using robots for many applications like in
uneven terrain, or in some hazardous situation, it is required
to deal remotely with the physical robots, and the require-
ment of the system fluctuates as per the time. Using the
cloud in such cases will be very much facilitating for those
applications.
7.1 OpenStack
Open stack was founded by NASA and Rack space in 2010.
Open stack is free and open-source cloud computing soft-
ware platform which provide users methods and support
to deploy virtual machines in a remote environment. Open
stack is an open-source project by NASA that aims to ten-
der the cloud-based services with simplicity, scalability and
rich in functionality. It is also being used in various applica-
tions of robotics and is being suggested and recommended
by many researchers for mobile robots (Aguiar et al. 2014;
Huang et al. 2016; Dyumin et al. 2015). The open stack can
be used if one wants to reduce the cost per virtual machine
and thus reduces overall infrastructure costs. OpenStack
13
K. Sharma, R. Doriya
is capable of providing services to stimulate the business
responsiveness, sharing of available resource so that they
can be utilized in an optimum way, and is highly elastics in
nature which is also an excellent aesthetic factor for some of
the businesses (He et al. 2019; Borsatti et al. 2018). Some
more cloud computing platforms are being discussed by
Ruda et al. for robotics (Haidegger et al. 2019).
7.2 Google cloud platform
Google cloud computing platform is one of the most popu-
lar computing platforms which provides services and can
be a good solution for some robotics application. Here in
this paper, we have also implemented a path planning prob-
lem using google cloud Garraghan et al. (2013). We have
used it as Infrastructure as a Service to execute the path
planning problem. The system architecture that is proposed
to cloud-based path planning system consists of three lay-
ers, server layer, a cloud engine layer(provides lightweight
virtual machine called container to execute authorized pro-
grams uses rapyuta) and a client robot layer. To get maxi-
mum utilization of computational resources Path Planner
is implemented using multithreading. Local computational
Power, node properties and network bandwidth are the three
criteria which help us to understand whether it is better to
run a node in the cloud or robot (Mishra et al. 2010; Lam and
Lam 2014). In this paper service of Google cloud platform
is utilized as IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service) to carry out
path planning problem using A* algorithm.
Figure 7 shows the result obtained, Map-1 to Map-4 in
the first row are the input reference maps and the second row
shows the respective output of each map after implementing
A* algorithm over it, path length and path time are calcu-
lated and displayed at the bottom of the respective outputs.
Google cloud computing platform is used to experiment.
Fig. 3  Diagram representing working of Firefly algorithm
Path planning for robots: an elucidating draft
Fig. 4  Diagram representing working of Cuckoo search algorithm
Fig. 5  Diagram representing working of BAT Algorithm
Fig. 6  Diagram representing working of Grey wolf optimization algo-
rithm
Table 2  Comparison of results obtained on the reference maps using
path planning algorithms
Reference map Path planning Path Time taken (s) No. of
algorithms length moves
(units) (units)
Maze A* 351 143 19
Maze PRM 371 12 24
Maze RRT​ 451 227 440
Maze D* 442 178 436
8 Conclusion
In this paper, we have done an extensive survey of the algo-
rithms used for robot path planning. A detailed analysis is
being done on the various problems and limitations related
to path planning. We had tried to cover all the prominent
path planning algorithm as much possible in this paper. To
put it in the right perspective, the problem of path planning
and its domain, the paper focused on the evolution of path
planning algorithms citing its impact on different application
areas. Along with that, the classification of different working
environments is also presented. It is evident that initially, the
concept of robot path planning is primarily consumed by the
manufacturing and production-based industry and later on
grabbed the attention by many other sections of the industry.
From the evolution perspective, it seems that the path
planning problem for robots witnessed a boom during the
industrialization phase across the world. Later on, it was a
bit dormant while the next decade again took a leap when
the nature-inspired algorithm start commencing in the
research field, and in a very short due course of time, it was
widely accepted and deployed for solving the problem of
optimization. It helped in optimizing the effort being put for
solving the issues related to the concerned domain, which
stimulated its applications and usage. Several amendments
and up-gradation brought out by many researchers using
nature-inspired algorithms for their work.
The paper first tried to put the summary of the evolution
of path planning algorithms. Then the effort was made to
classify it based on the environments and respective prob-
lem domain, discussing some significant contribution, most
recent contribution the paper next focused on the recent
technologies which could be the future prospect of robot’s
path planning and the gist was to bring attention towards
cloud platforms.
Analyzing the evolution, classification and recent trends
this paper try to forecast and presumes that the coming era
will be of cloud, and using cloud computing platform will
give a synthetic boost to the robot path planning problems.
Cloud computing platform can easily handle and coordinate
a cluster of the robot (multi-robot) system. Also, it will ease
the computation problem of robots as that can be handled
13

Fig. 7  Implementation of A* algorithm for robot Path Planning algorithm using Google Cloud Platform
by the cloud server, which will be much more efficient and
capable of handling a large volume of task. So, before actu-
ally concluding and going for a recommendation, we have
implemented A* algorithm for robot path planning in four
distinct reference maps using Google Cloud. In the last, as
a remark and recommendation, the paper tries to attract the
attention of researchers towards clubbing this new technol-
ogy with that of robot path planning. Blending of cloud
computing platform with the path planning algorithms will
be the reason for wide acceptability of robots in many more
application areas in the coming time.
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