Recent progress, challenges and future prospects of applied deep reinforcement learning: A practical perspective in path planning

Path planning is one of the most crucial elements in the field of robotics, such as autonomous driving, minimally invasive surgery and logistics distribution. This review begins by summarizing the limitations of conventional path planning methods and recent work on DRL-based path planning methods. Subsequently, the paper systematically reviews the construction of key elements of DRL methods in recent work, with the aim of assisting readers in comprehending the foundation of DRL research, along with the underlying logic and considerations from a practical perspective. Facing issues of sparse rewards and the exploration–exploitation balance during the practical training process, the paper reviews enhancement methods for training efficiency and optimization results in DRL path planning. In the end, the paper summarizes the current research limitations and challenges in practical path planning applications, followed by future research directions.