View source for A Motion Planner for Nonholonomic Robots

{{HTDB paper
| authors = J-P. Laumond, P. E. Jacobs, M. Taix and R. M. Murray
| title = A Motion Planner for Nonholonomic Robots
| source = <i>IEEE T. Robotics and Automation</i>, 10: (5) 577-593
| year = 1994
| type = Downloading and printing FAQ
| funding = 
| url = help.html
| abstract =  This paper considers the problem of motion planning for a car-like robot (i.e., a
mobile robot with a nonholonomic constraint whose turning radius is lower-bounded). We
present a fast and exact planner for our mobile robot model, based upon recursive
subdivision of a collision-free path generated by a lower-level geometric planner that
ignores the motion constraints. The resultant trajectory is optimized to give a path that
is of near-minimal length in its homotopy class. Our claims of high speed are supported by
experimental results for implementations that assume a robot moving amid polygonal
obstacles. The completeness and the complexity of the algorithm are proven using an
appropriate metric in the configuration space R2 x S1 of the robot. This metric is defined
by using the length of the shortest paths in the absence of obstacles as the distance
between two configurations. We prove that the new induced topology and the classical one
are the same. Although we concentration upon the car-like robot, the generalization of
these techniques leads to new theoretical issues involving sub-Riemannian geometry and to
practical results for nonholonomic motion planning. 
| flags = 
| tag = ljtm94-tra
| id = 1994p
}}