A Fusion Method of Local Path Planning for Mobile Robots Based on LSTM Neural Network and Reinforcement Learning

Due to the limitation of mobile robots’ understanding of the environment in local path planning tasks, the problems of local deadlock and path redundancy during planning exist in unknown and complex environments. In this paper, a novel algorithm based on the combination of a long short-term memory (LSTM) neural network, fuzzy logic control, and reinforcement learning is proposed, and uses the advantages of each algorithm to overcome the other’s shortcomings. First, a neural network model including LSTM units is designed for local path planning. Second, a low-dimensional input fuzzy logic control (FL) algorithm is used to collect training data, and a network model (LSTM_FT) is pretrained by transferring the learned method to learn the basic ability. Then, reinforcement learning is combined to learn new rules from the environments autonomously to better suit different scenarios. Finally, the fusion algorithm LSTM_FTR is simulated in static and dynamic environments, and compared to FL and LSTM_FT algorithms, respectively. Numerical simulations show that, compared to FL, LSTM_FTR can significantly improve decision-making efficiency, improve the success rate of path planning, and optimize the path length. Compared to the LSTM_FT, LSTM_FTR can improve the success rate and learn new rules.