Improved A* Method for High Efficiency Forklift Path Planning

Xinyi Huang, Ni Zhang, Kesheng Fan, Xiaojing Zhong, Qingyao Wu

Abstract: As industrial transport vehicles, forklifts are widely used in factories and warehouses, responsible for the loading, unloading, and handling of goods. The forklift has orientation requirements when working, but its volume is too large to complete in-place turning. What is more, traditional path planning algorithms can not plan the turning track of a forklift. In this paper, we propose an improved <tex xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">$A^{\ast}$</tex> method for high efficiency forklift path planning. First, we convert the forklift map into a raster map according to specific rules and then use the defined T structure combined with improved <tex xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">$A^{\ast}$</tex> algorithm for path planning. Experiments show that the proposed method can plan the travel path of the forklift between the starting point and the terminal point, meeting the requirement of forklift orientation at the end in the meantime.