Path Planning of Mobile Robots with an Improved Grey Wolf Optimizer and Dynamic Window Approach

To address the critical limitations of conventional Grey Wolf Optimization (GWO) in path planning scenarios—including insufficient exploration capability during the initial phase, proneness to local optima entrapment, and inherent deficiency in dynamic obstacle avoidance—this paper proposes a multi-strategy enhanced GWO algorithm. Firstly, the Piecewise chaotic mapping is applied to initialize the Grey Wolf population, enhancing the initial population quality. Secondly, the linear convergence factor is modified to a nonlinear one to balance the algorithm’s global and local search capabilities. Thirdly, Evolutionary Population Dynamics (EPD) is incorporated to enhance the algorithm’s ability to escape local optima, and dynamic weights are used to improve convergence speed and accuracy. Finally, the algorithm is integrated with the Improved Dynamic Window Approach (IDWA) to enhance path smoothness and perform dynamic obstacle avoidance. The proposed algorithm is named PAGWO-IDWA. The results demonstrate that, compared to traditional GWO, PAGWO-IDWA reduces the path length, number of turns, and running time by 9.58%, 33.16%, and 30.31%, respectively. PAGWO-IDWA not only overcomes the limitations of traditional GWO but also enables effective path planning in dynamic environments, generating paths that are both safe and smooth, thus validating the effectiveness of the algorithm.