Applications and Prospects of APF in Robot Path Planning

Path planning is important to realize intelligent and automatic unmanned systems. The artificial potential field (APF) method has attracted wide attention because of its brief and elegant algorithm. However, the APF method often appears to have the local minimum value in the actual working process, which leads to the failure of planning feasible routes and navigation failure. This paper discusses and summarizes the application of the APF method in different fields, including mobile robots, unmanned vehicles, robotic arms, unmanned aerial vehicles, and underwater unmanned vehicles. At the same time, many feasible methods to solve the local minimum problem and advance path-planning efficiency are introduced. The purpose of this article is to give practitioners who are new to path planning a basic understanding of its application scope and to gain a basic understanding of the principles, advantages, and disadvantages of the APF algorithm. The importance of this study is to summarize the application of the APF method in different fields of path planning and its combination with other algorithms. It helps beginners understand the APF algorithm more comprehensively.