A Hybrid Enhanced Harris Hawks Optimization Algorithm for AGV Path Planning in Smart Warehousing

Automated Guided Vehicles (AGVs) play a crucial role in intelligent warehousing; however, effective path planning remains challenging because of obstacles, safety constraints, and the risk of suboptimal routes. This study proposes an improved Harris Hawks Optimization algorithm for AGV path planning, introducing strategies to enhance initial solution quality, balance global and local search, and avoid local optima. The proposed algorithm generates shorter, smoother, and safer paths, as demonstrated through benchmark tests, multi-scale grid-map simulations, and real-world AGV experiments. In terms of path length and computational efficiency, the enhanced algorithm significantly outperforms the original HHO, reducing average path length by 10.81% and average travel time by 11.94%. These results demonstrate that the proposed method provides a practical and reliable solution for autonomous warehouse navigation and significantly improves AGV path-planning performance.