Optimal Kinodynamic Motion Planning Through Anytime Bidirectional Heuristic Search with Tight Termination Condition

This paper introduces Bidirectional Tight Informed Trees (BTIT*), an asymptotically optimal kinodynamic sampling-based motion planning algorithm that integrates an anytime bidirectional heuristic search (Bi-HS) and ensures the \emph{meet-in-the-middle} property (MMP) and optimality (MM-optimality). BTIT* is the first anytime MEET-style algorithm to utilize termination conditions that are efficient to evaluate and enable early termination \emph{on-the-fly} in batch-wise sampling-based motion planning. Experiments show that BTIT* achieves strongly faster time-to-first-solution and improved convergence than representative \emph{non-lazy} informed batch planners on two kinodynamic benchmarks: a 4D double-integrator model and a 10D linearized Quadrotor. The source code is available here.

Self-Supervised Learning-Based Path Planning and Obstacle Avoidance Using PPO and B-Splines in Unknown Environments

This paper introduces SmartBSP, an advanced self-supervised learning framework for real-time path planning and obstacle avoidance in autonomous robotics navigating through complex environments. The proposed system integrates Proximal Policy Optimization (PPO) with Convolutional Neural Networks (CNN) and Actor-Critic architecture to process limited LIDAR inputs and compute spatial decision-making probabilities. The robot's perceptual field is discretized into a grid format, which the CNN analyzes to produce a spatial probability distribution. During the training process a nuanced cost function is minimized that accounts for path curvature, endpoint proximity, and obstacle avoidance. Simulations results in different scenarios validate the algorithm's resilience and adaptability across diverse operational scenarios. Subsequently, Real-time experiments, employing the Robot Operating System (ROS), were carried out to assess the efficacy of the proposed algorithm.