Research on path smoothing optimisation based on improved RRT-Connect algorithm and third-order Bezier curve

Aiming at the deficiencies of the original RRT-Connect path planning algorithm in dealing with obstacle avoidance, planning efficiency and path smoothing in static environments, an improved path optimisation method is proposed by fusing the RRT-Connect path planning algorithm with the greedy search strategy and using a third-order Bezier curve for path smoothing. Firstly, a greedy algorithm is added to the path planning process of the original RRT-Connect algorithm to guide the search direction, so as to make the path search more goal oriented, reduce the time of path planning and improve the efficiency. Secondly, the generated paths are smoothed with third-order Bezier curves to ensure the generation of smooth paths with continuous curvature and improve the quality of the planned paths. Finally, the improved RRT-Connect smoothing optimisation algorithm is simulated with the original RRT-Connect, A* and Dijkstra algorithms in different simulation environments to check the performance of the optimised algorithm. The results show that the success rate of obstacle avoidance in planning paths of the optimised algorithms are all 100%, and compared with the original RRT-Connect algorithm, the improved RRT-Connect smoothing optimisation algorithm has an overall reduction of 12.02% in planning path length, an overall reduction of 40.22% in computation time and an overall improvement of 69.15% in path smoothness. Compared to the A* algorithm, which is based on the graph search shortest path planning algorithm and takes the shortest time, there is an overall reduction of 62.46% in computation time. The improved RRT-Connect smoothing optimisation algorithm has shorter path planning lengths, smoother paths and shortest computation time in different simulation environments. Meanwhile, the stability of the optimisation algorithm is effectively improved in different environments and different running times.