Using River Formation Dynamics Algorithm in Mobile Robot Navigation

River Formation Dynamics is a heuristic optimization algorithm based on the manner, in which drops of water form the river bed. The idea is to imitate the movement of drops on the edges between given nodes thus performing a search based on their height, which is modified through the mechanism of soil erosion and sediment deposition. In this way decreasing gradients are constructed, and these are followed by subsequent drops to compose new gradients and reinforce the best ones. This paper presents implementation of the method in wheeled mobile robot path searching task in an environment with obstacles. At first, a concise introduction to theRFDalgorithm is presented, along with the problems requirements. In the main part a simulation test has been performed using the algorithm to find the shortest route from the starting point to the goal. The tests were made with different landscape layouts, measuring the computation time. The last section presents a real life implementation of the algorithm using aPioneer P3-DXmobile robot. The validity of this solution is discussed, as well as any modifications, along with a brief comparison with a similar, popular search path algorithm.