INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF PRECISION ENGINEERING AND MANUFACTURING Vol. 19, No. 9, pp.

1331-1338 SEPTEMBER 2018 / 1331

REGULAR PAPER DOI: 10.1007/s12541-018-0157-1

ISSN 2234-7593 (Print) / 2005-4602 (Online)

Level Set Based Path Planning Using a Novel Path

Optimization Algorithm for Robots

Xiao-Guang Zhang1, Wei Zhang1,#, Hui Li1,2, Ming-Qin Liu1, and Sungki Lyu3,#
1 School of Mechanical and Electrical Engineering, China University of Mining & Technology, 1, Daxue Road, Xuzhou, Jiangsu, 221116, China
2 School of Mechanical and Electrical Engineering, ZaoZhuang University, 1, Beian Road, Zaozhuang, Shandong, 277160, China
3 School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, ReCAPT, Gyeongsang National University, 501, Jinju-daero, Jinju-si, Gyeongsangnam-do, 52828, Republic of Korea
# Corresponding Authors / E-mail: 18052127939@163.com, TEL +86-18052127939, ORCID: 0000-0002-5131-1621
E-mail: sklyu@gnu.ac.kr, TEL: +82-55-772-1632, ORCID: 0000-0001-9803-0272

KEYWORDS: Path optimization, Active contour, Path planning, Level set, Distance field

In order to decrease the path length and control the minimum distance between the path and the obstacles when the level set based
path planning algorithm is adopted , a new path optimization algorithm named elastic particle is proposed in this paper. Firstly, the
iteration expression of optimization algorithm is deduced by active contour theory. Secondly, to ensure the convergence of algorithm,
the relation among each item in the algorithm expression is analyzed and its convergence condition is determined. At last, level set
algorithm is improved so that the smoothness of the initial path and the convergence speed of the algorithm are improved. In addition,
a method named the nearest boundary distance is put forward to accelerate the operation speed of the algorithm. What’s more,
memory pool and binary sort tree are adopted in the code to further reduce the running time of this algorithm. The optimal values
of the algorithm parameters are analyzed via the simulation experiment,and its result demonstrates that the new algorithm has greatly
optimized the path of algorithm-level set and guaranteed fast running speed and high reliability.

Manuscript received: July 28, 2017 / Revised: March 19, 2018 / Accepted: June 15, 2018

1. Introduction to solve continuous environments prone to currents issues. Mitchell et

Path planning plays an important role in robot navigation. Generally,
the workspace of the robot consists of free space and obstacle space.
The essence of path planning is searching a path in the free space when
1
meeting certain constraints. Common methods of path planning include
2-5
particle swarm optimization (PSO), genetic algorithm (GA),
9,10
simulated annealing algorithm (SAA) and ant colony algorithm
11-13
(ACA).
In recent years, many researchers have focused on the path planning
algorithm based on level set because of its rapid running speed and
implementation simplicity. It can be divided into two main parts: (1)
obtaining the global cost distribution of the target point via solving
Eikonal equation; (2) getting the path via greedy method according to
the cost distribution.
For the first step, most researchers have proposed a variety of
14
improved solutions to accelerate the solving process. Xu et al. formally
analyzed the level set algorithm and researched the mechanisms of the
value of the level set function changing with environment. Petres et al.
proposed a novel Fast Marching Method based path planning algorithm
16
al. studied the path planning problems which satisfy several additive
17
constrains. Kimmel et al. proposed a new FMM algorithm to solve
the 3D reconstruction problem and the new FMM algorithm combined
with a back tracking gradient descent along the reconstructed surface to
search the path in robot navigation.
6-8
According to cost distribution computed by the 1st step, common
method used to search the path is gradient descent algorithm. The
shortest path search method has been applied more and more widely in
18-20
path planning field in recent years, such as A* algorithm, Dijkstra
21,22
algorithm.
Though the path planning algorithm based on level set is fast in
calculation and more suitable for robot navigation with high real-time
requirement, there are some disadvantages in this algorithm:
(1) The path obtained via the level set method is not optimal. Its
length and smoothness need to be further improved.
(2) The shortest distance between the path and the obstacle couldn’t
be adjusted and thus it cannot fit robots of various shapes and
15
dimensions.
Therefore, an elastic particle path optimization algorithm is proposed

© KSPE and Springer 2018

 1332 / SEPTEMBER 2018 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF PRECISION ENGINEERING AND MANUFACTURING Vol. 19, No. 9

to further optimize the initial path by analyzing the active contour theory.
The basic principle of this algorithm is that the path is considered as a
set of ordered particles. Each particle is balanced under the action of
internal and external force so that the path converges to a predetermined
position. In the construction of external force, in order to accelerate the
running speed of this algorithm, memory pool and binary sort tree are
used for the implementation of the resolving distance field problem. To
accelerate the convergence speed of optimizing algorithm, bilinear
interpolation and four-order Range-Kutte method are taken into the
velocity express in Eikonal function to solve the initial path.

Fig. 1 An example of distribution distances between points in free

2. Path Optimization Algorithm space and obstacle space

2.1 Theoretical deduction of the algorithm

The path obtained by the previous method can be processed further 2.2 Convergence condition of the optimization algorithm
to decrease the length and increase the smoothness. A path optimization When ∂C/∂t = 0 , the change rate of the path is zero, which means
algorithm inspired from the active contour is proposed. The basic idea the path optimization algorithm convergent to the desired position. Eq.
of this algorithm is that the path is considered to consist of several (3) can be modified as follows:
particles, the position of every particle is determined by internal force
and external force, so we name this algorithm elastic particles algorithm. – (β C′)′ + ∇g = 0 (6)
Suppose a curve C(p), the aim is to obtain the shortest path. So this
problem can be transformed into following energy functional problem: Following conclusion can be achieved from Eq. (6), the resultant
force of each particle is zero and all particles stop motion, then the path
1 1 1
2 2
E ( C ( p) ) = ∫ ω 1 Cp ( p) dp + ∫ ω 2 Cpp ( p) dp + ∫ g ( C ( p ) ) dp (1) will converge to the desired state. In order to ensure the convergence
0 0 0
of our algorithm, the most important premise is making appropriate
1 1
The second item ∫ Cpp ( p) dp = ∫ κ ⎛ -------⎞ dp is the oscillation
2 2 dC
choice of selecting the appropriate external force.
0 0 ⎝ ds ⎠
energy of the curve, the first item is the length of the curve. According Eq. (7) is new repulse potential field.
to curvature motion evolution theory, the curve will become smoother
⎧ ⎛ d ( x, y )⎞
by decreasing the length of curve, and accordingly the second can be ⎪δ 1 – --------------
- d ≤ Rth
P ( d ( x, y ) ) = ⎨ ⎝ Rth ⎠ (7)
eliminated. Eq. (1) can be simplified as follows: ⎪0
⎩ d > Rth
1 1
2
E ( C ( p)) = ∫ β Cp ( p ) dp + ∫ g ( C ( p) ) dp (2) where d(x, y) represents the distance from point (x, y) in the free space
0 0
to the forbidden space.
The gradient descent flow of Eq. (2) is Thus, the repulse force can be set according to Eq. (8)

∂C ∇P
------- = – (β C′)′ + ∇g (3) ∇g = Frep = –δ ----------- (8)
∂t ∇P

The initial path can be optimized by Eq. (3). The first item is the In which δ is the magnitude of the repulse force. ∇P/ ∇P is the
internal force which can be classified as interaction force between normalized potential field, which is the direction of the repulse force.
particles, and the second item is the external force exerted by the Hence, in order to guarantee the converge of algorithm, the path
external environment on the particles. expression must meet the following equation:
Eq. (3) is discretized through finite differences method and the
δ
recursion formulae of path can be got C″ ≤ –--- Frep ( d ) (9)
β
n+1 n n n n n n
Ci = Ci – Δt (β ( ( Ci – Ci – 1) – ( Ci + 1 – Ci ) ) + ∇g ( Ci ) ) (4) Eq. (9) can also be rewritten as follows

δ ⎧ ∇P ⎫ δ
Where i represents the ith particle, n is the iterative number, C is C″ ≤ --- sup ⎨ ----------- ⎬ = --- (10)
0
β Ω ⎩ ∇P ⎭ β
the initial path which is obtained by the previous algorithm. C consists 0

n n
of m particles, Co is the start point, Cm is the destination. Therefore, Eq. (10) can guarantee the convergence of our algorithm.
Let g(C) = −P(C), the P(C) can be seen as the repulse potential in
the artificial potential algorithm, ∇P ( Ci ) is the repulse force acting on
the ith particle. So the equation can be modified as: 3. The Solving Method of Distance Field

n+1 n n n n n
Ci = Ci – Δt (β ( ( Ci – Ci – 1 ) – ( Ci + 1 – Ci ) ) – Frep ) (5) In section 2, the distance from the point in free space to the obstacle
 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF PRECISION ENGINEERING AND MANUFACTURING Vol. 19, No. 9 SEPTEMBER 2018 / 1333

space is represented by d(x, y). The d(x, y) can be calculated by

following analysis.
In Fig. 1, the distribution of d(x, y) can be described by distance
field. Thus d(x, y) can be expressed by the level set formation as shown
in Eq. (11):

Γ ( c ) = {{x, y }|d ( x, y )=c, ( x, y ) ∈ Ωfree } (11)

Γ(c) represents the distance field. There are two main methods
currently for getting the solution of distance field set: the direct method
and the Eikonal equation method.
(1) The direct method is easy to operate and realize, which is
described in Eq. (12):
k k k k
di = min {di1, di2, …, dM }
(12)
1 2 N
di = min {di , di , …, dij }
Where i is the ith grid point in free space, j is the jth boundary point, Fig. 2 The initial status of computing distance field set
k is the kth obstacle. The complexity of this method is O(MN), it requires
a great number of computations.
(2) Eikonal equation method gets the distance distribution through
solving Eikonal equation shown as Eq. (13):

1
∇T = --- (13)
V

Set V=1, according to the definition of Eikonal equation, the initial

value is the set of obstacle boundary point, the solution of Eikonal
equation is the distance field set. However, the distance obtained Fig. 3 The updating method when there exists rational distance
through this method is not really Euclidean distance. Thus, a method
named nearest boundary point diffusion based on Fast Marching
Method (FMM) is proposed in this paper to establish distance field set.
Similar to FMM, this method divides the network points into three
types: frozen, narrow band and far, and adds a nearest source domain
for each point to store the nearest boundary point. Steps are as follows:
(1) Transforming the input map into a binary image of double types.
Wherein, the obstacle space value is 1 and the free space value is 0.
The map boundary point is extracted through Eq. (14):
Fig. 4 One updating method when there exists two rational distance
map ( i, j ) = 1&& ( map ( i + 1, j ) = 0 ||map ( i – 1, j ) = 0 values
(14)
||map ( i, j + 1 ) = 0 ||map ( i, j – 1 ) = 0)

(2) The blocks are emblems of pixels, in which of numbers are

symbol of distance to obstacles. White blocks present obstacle whose
boundary is showed by the light grey, and free space is indicated by
dark grey, as showed by Fig. 2(a). The boundary point is marked as
frozen point and the distance is set to 0, and the 0 point is showed by
Fig. 2(a) Other points in free space belong to far set and the distances
are infinite, as shown in Fig. 2(a) by the ∞ point. We search four
neighboring points of every boundary point. If the neighboring point is
a free space point and belongs to far point set, this neighboring point
will be set as a narrow band point and its distance value will be set to
1. The blocks as a range of 1 to symbol search for every boundary
point, which is the nearest boundary point of its neighboring point, as
shown in Fig. 2(b). From the Fig. 2(b), the boundary point a is nearest
boundary point of its neighboring point b and c. Arrowhead chain
directing transmition direction is formed by some steps, which initial
stage presents the boundary of obstacle. The distance, from point in
free space to initial point of arrowhead chain, is the length between free
space point and obstacle. In other wards, it is a minimum distance for
point in free space to any boundary point.
(3) Selecting the point with shortest distance in the set of all narrow
band points and set it as frozen point. Then the distances of its four
neighboring points are updated as below:
A. As shown in Fig. 3, if q is the point with shortest distance
selected from the narrow band set, the distance of p needs to be
updated. In this case, there is rational distance (rational distance means
the distance value is not equal to ∞) value only in one direction of point
p, thus its distance value will be updated as dq+1. The nearest boundary
point of p is same as the nearest boundary point of q.
B. Suppose that there are rational distance values in two directions,
assume (xC, yC) is the point whose distance needs to be calculated. Set
a = min ( dxC – 1, yc, dxC + 1, yc ) , b = min ( dxC, yC – 1, dxC, yC + 1 ) and c =
 1334 / SEPTEMBER 2018
Fig. 5 Another updating method when there exists two rational
distance values
min(a, b). The distance value of this point will be updated by the
following methods:
As shown in Fig. 4, q is the point with shortest distance selected
from the narrow band set, the distance of p is to be updated. If a==b,
S is the nearest boundary point of the point with rational value in
1
direction x, S is the nearest boundary point of the point with rational
2 The energy functional will be
value in direction y, d is the distance between S1 and p, d is the
1 2
distance between S and p, then the distance value of point p will be
2 E ( C ( p )) = ∫ Cp ( p ) dp = ∫ ds
updated as min(d , d ). The nearest boundary point of point p is Sseq,
1 2
seq = argmin(d , d ).
1 2
As shown in Fig. 5, q is the point with shortest distance selected
from the narrow band set, the distance of p is to be updated. If a ≠ b ,
S is the nearest boundary point of the point with rational value in
1 When there is a particle ei, which satisfies d(ei) ≤ rth, the path
direction x, S is the nearest boundary point of the point with rational
2 optimization is in the constrained evolution stage. In this stage, the
value in direction y. Set seq = argmin(a, b), so the nearest boundary
point of point p is Sseq and the distance of point p is ||p−Sseq||.
4. The Acquisition of Obtaining Initial Path
Suppose there is a velocity gradient area whose radius is Rth (Rth >
rth) around the forbidden space. In the algorithm of this paper, the map
is a binary double-type picture, and the area with value 0 refers to free
area and the area with value 1 refers to forbidden area. Below velocity
function is proposed according to these information:
max ( Rth – d ( x, y )0 )
V ( x, y ) = 1 – -------------------------------------------
- (15)
Rth
Where d(x, y) is the distance of the point from free space to
forbidden space. Eq. (15) is used to compute the solution of the Eikonal
equation. In the new method, the minimum distance between the path
and the forbidden space is Rth.
5. Convergence Analysis of the Optimization Algorithm
By the previous analysis, the path optimization consists two stages:
free evolution stage and constrained evolution stage. Suppose C is the
initial path, e is a particle in the path, d represent the distance field, and
n is the number of particles.
When rth < d(ei) ≤ Rth, i = 1, 2, …, n, initial path will be in the free
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF PRECISION ENGINEERING AND MANUFACTURING Vol. 19, No. 9
Fig. 6 Simulation map (For estimating the influence of β and Δt on
the convergence of path optimization algorithm)
evolution stage. External force does not work, the path evolution is
completely controlled by internal force according to Eq. (16)
2
∂C ∂ C
------- = --------2- (16)
∂t ∂p
1 D
2
(17)
0 S
Eq. (17) is gradient descent flow of Eq. (16). Eq. (17) illustrates that
decreasing the energy means the decrease of length of C(p). The path
will evolve to a straight line.
position of particle will be gradually stable. Therefore, just selecting
appropriate β and δ can ensure that the path will converge to the desired
position. In this paper, we propose the following method to determine
β and δ.
δ
--- = sup { C″ }n – 1 (18)
β n Ω
Where n is current iteration.
6. Experiment and Discussion
6.1 Influence of Δt and β on convergence performance of path
optimization algorithm
In Eq. (5), Δt and β are two important parameters. It is intuitive that
the convergence capability of path optimization algorithm is related to
these two parameters. We will discuss how Δt and β impact on the
convergence performance of path optimization algorithm in this part.
Fig. 6 is the simulation map. Main parameters are set as follows: R = th
5, r = 3. The simulation scenes are shown in Table 1.
th
Figs. 7 and 9 show the change of path length when β = 1 and Δt is
varying. Figs. 8 and 10 show the change of path length when Δt = 0.1
and β is varying. Simulation experiments show that increasing Δt and
β is conducive to decreasing the path length and accelerating the
convergence speed. There are two main reasons: (1) The increment of
Δt and β causes larger internal force, accordingly, the convergence
speed is increased. (2) The larger Δt and β is, the longer movement
 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF PRECISION ENGINEERING AND MANUFACTURING Vol. 19, No. 9 SEPTEMBER 2018 / 1335

Fig. 7 The change of length of path using Fig. 6(a) (Varying Δt, while Fig. 9 The change of length of path using Fig. 6(b) (Varying Δt, while
β = 1) β = 1)

Fig. 8 The change of length of path using Fig. 6(a) (Varying β, while Fig. 10 The change of length of path using Fig. 6(b) (Varying β,
Δt = 0.1) while Δt = 0.1)

Table 1 Simulation parameters (For estimating the influence of β and

Δt on the convergence of path optimization algorithm)
Start Destination
Fig. 6(a) (102,177) (278,415)
Fig. 6(b) (43,49) (283,237)

distance of particle will be, which will cause the smoothness and length
of the path decreases. However, when the value exceeds permitted
value, the feasible path may not be obtained. So we set β = 1, Δt = 0.1 Fig. 11 The distance distribution between every point on the path and
in this paper. the forbidden region when adopting Fig. 19(a)

6.2 Analysis of the convergence condition of path optimization

algorithm
The convergence condition of path optimization is analyzed in the
previous section. In this section, the effectiveness will be discussed.
The simulation map is presented in Fig. 6(a). Main parameters are
listed as follows: β = 1, Δt = 0.01. Iteration number is 10000. δ is
determined by Eq. (18).
The value of rth is 3, which means that the desired minimal distance
between the path and forbidden space is 3. From Fig. 11, the minimal
distance between the path and forbidden space is 2.9577. Fig. 12 Fig. 12 The change of max internal force when adopting Fig. 19(a)
illustrates that evolution of the path fits the previous analysis. Fig. 13
shows the initial path indicated by blue and final path indicated by red.
It can be got from these figures that the path optimization can make the the real-time capability of our algorithm is evaluated by comparing
initial path converge to the desired position. with the Eikonal equation solution method proposed in Ref. 23. The
scene of this evaluation is shown in Fig. 14. From the figure, for one
6.3 Running time of path optimization algorithm via distance obstacle, maintaining the dimension of middle white obstacle and
field changing the size of black free area changes the measurement of
For the sake of speeding up the running rate of establishing distance simulation circumstance. The capability of algorithm to map can be
field set, memory pool and binary sort tree are adopted. In this section, checked on the constant dimension and changeable free area. The size
 1336 / SEPTEMBER 2018 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF PRECISION ENGINEERING AND MANUFACTURING Vol. 19, No. 9
Fig. 13 The path obtained by our algorithm when adopting Fig. 19(a)
Fig. 14 The scene of simulation map
of obstacle remains unchanged, while the size of free space is modified.
Under different size of maps, algorithm runs 50 times and record the
average running time. Fig. 15 is the parameters of this experiment, the
results are shown as Fig. 16. It can be seen that the memory pool and
binary sort tree improve the speed of the stablishing distance field set
algorithm. The results meet the design goal of the algorithm.
6.4 Running time of the whole algorithm
The running time of establishing distance field set is discussed in
the previous section. In this section the running time of the whole
algorithm will be investigated. Fig. 17 is the simulation parameters.
Other parameters are: β = 1, Δt = 0.1, R = 5, r = 3. The iteration
th th
number is 5000. Algorithm runs 100 times under different scene and
records the average running time. The results are shown as Fig. 18. The
establishment of the distance field set and the establishment of the
global cost are only related to the map, which is independent of the
path in the scene. The simulation shows that the algorithm in this paper
has high real-time performance.
Fig. 15 Simulation scene for evaluating the time of solving distance
field
Fig. 16 Comparison of the time used for several distance field solving
algorithms
7. Conclusions
In this paper, a new path optimization algorithm is proposed. Main
conclusions draw by previous analysis are presented as follows:
(1) Compared with traditional Eikonal method, the nearest boundary
point propagation method can obtain the distance field distribution with
the minimum amount of time, which mainly owing to the adoption of
memory pool and binary sort tree in this algorithm.
(2) A gradual change speed for Eikonal can reduce the oscillation
phenomenon of initial path obtained by common gradient descent and
accelerate the convergence speed of the optimization algorithm. From
the simulation results, the error between minimum distance to obstacle
for every point and the expected is 1.41%, and it basically meets the
requirements.
(3) The convergence condition of the optimization algorithm can
ensure the convergence performance of the path. The final path
converges to the desired position under the influence of this
optimization algorithm. The simulation results show that the proposed
 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF PRECISION ENGINEERING AND MANUFACTURING Vol. 19, No. 9
Fig. 17 Start point and destination of the scene for evaluating running
time
Fig. 18 The results of operating time
algorithm can reduce the average time by 59.9% compared with the
traditional algorithm.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
The authors are grateful to the anonymous referees for their valuable
comments and suggestions for improving the presentation of this paper.
Project Funded by the Priority Academic Program Development of
Jiangsu Higher Education Institutions (PAPD). Production, Prospective
Joint Research Projects in Jiangsu Province (BY2016026-02).
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