Is it possible to control specific nodes in A star navigator?

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Rahul R asked May 12 2022 at 5:26 PM Rahul R commented May 13 2022 at 4:43 PM

Is it possible to control specific nodes in A star navigator?

I am modeling a bot takes 90 degree turns. I am exploring A star implementation but the bot has an overhang and which means I will need block of adjacent nodes in the Astar network. Is that possible in flexsim A star implementation or am I better doing this with AGV or travel network nodes?

Software Version:

FlexSim 21.2.4

agv astar robot movement travel networks kiva robot

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Answer 1 · 2022-05-13T06:17:39Z

Felix Möhlmann answered May 13 2022 at 6:17 AM Rahul R commented May 13 2022 at 4:43 PM

I think in theory you could add dynamic barriers for each node and toggle them depending on traveller vicinity. Though every traveller would have to constantly recalculate their route to account for the changing barriers which would make the model run slow.

Another option would be to change the grid spacing to match the robot size, though this might not be possible if the spacing needs to the finer to reach all locations.

I remember that this topic (travellers blocking more than one node) was brought up before and the developer's response was that they are considering it.

For now, if resizing the grid spacing is not an option, using another travel method is probably the better choice.

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Rahul R commented · May 13 2022 at 6:22 AM

Thanks for the response. What are the other viable travel methods? I am trying to navigate on a grid like floor storage from one cell to another.

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Felix Möhlmann Rahul R commented · May 13 2022 at 10:36 AM

It sounds like you want to model something like this:

https://www.autostoresystem.com/

One idea could be to use A* with mandatory paths that are spaced out so the robots can pass each other when travelling to the target cell. They would then only 'step out' to arrive at the final target for a short time minimizing the time where collisions could occur. This wouldn't exactly replicate the system but might be 'close enough'.

Other than that, I think building a custom path finding logic is your best bet. I actually built a prototype model for this purpose some time ago, that used a separate implementation of the A* algorithm to allow for different x- and y-dimensions of the grid cells (which wasn't possible at the time).

There are lots of resources about the algorithm online, since it's a popular example in IT studies.

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Rahul R Felix Möhlmann commented · May 13 2022 at 3:44 PM

Thank you for the response, is there any examples of custom path logic implementation in Flexsim using A star in this forum? I am looking for a starting point.

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