Accelerating sampling-based optimal path planning via adaptive informed sampling

This paper improves the performance of RRT*-like sampling-based path planners by combining admissible informed sampling and local sampling (i.e., sampling the neighborhood of the current solution). An adaptive strategy that accounts for the cost progression regulates the trade-off between exploration (admissible informed sampling) and exploitation (local sampling). The paper proves that the resulting algorithm is asymptotically optimal. Furthermore, its convergence rate is superior to that of state-of-the-art path planners, such as Informed-RRT*, both in simulations and manufacturing case studies. An open-source ROS-compatible implementation is also released.