Finding an Optimal Path

Solve the path planning problem of going through a vector field of wind in the least possible time using MATLAB and Optimization Toolbox.

This demo shows how to use MathWorks products to solve a path-planning problem.

The objective is to find the optimal path (path of least time) through a randomly generated vector field of wind values.

A Live Script shows how to set up both time-independent and time-dependent versions of the optimization problem.

An app created with App Designer shows an interactive way to do this analysis. The path may be defined by dragging control points with the mouse and the parameters (path distance and time) are updated on-the-fly.

Another Live Script shows how to use MATLAB Coder to generate C/C++ code for the optimization step and compares its run time to that of using MATLAB code.

The scripts and GUIDE app used in the “Finding Optimal Path Using Optimization Toolbox” video by Teja Muppirala are in the R2015b folder.