May 2012 1

Motion Planning
Shmuel Wimer
Bar Ilan Univ., Eng. Faculty
Technion, EE Faculty

May 2012 2
Outline
Problem definition
Point robot
Work space and configuration space
Minkowski sums
Translational motion planning
Rotational motion planning
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Types of Robots and Motions
Articulated Robot
Translation
Motion
start
goal
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Rotational
Motion
start
goal
Some robots can move in any direction (e.g., ants)
Some robots cannot translate (e.g., cars)
Well study translational and rotational motions
Given a robot, is there a free paths (no collisions) from start to goal?
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Work Space and Configuration Space
Reference
Point
2 Degrees of freedom 3 Degrees of freedom
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Configuration space
Work space
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Free Space Computation
Divide into trapezoids. It
takes O(nlogn) expected time.
Remove trapezoids of
obstacle in O(n) time.
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Building a Road Map
Allocate node at center
of vertical edges
Allocate node at center
of every trapezoid
Connect center nodes
to edge nodes
Done in O(n) with doubly-connected edge list
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Computing a Path
Get from start to center
of trapezoid in O(logn)
time
Get from goal to center
of trapezoid in O(logn)
time
Connect center of
trapezoids by BFS in
O(n) time
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Convert a problem with polygonal robot into point robot by modifying the
obstacles in the configuration space to incorporate the geometry of the
robot.
Minkowski Sums
obstacle
robot
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Extreme Points and Directions
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How complex is Minkowski sum of two polygons?
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R
a
b
c
d
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R
a
b
c
d
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R
a
b
c
d
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R
a
b
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R
a
b
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R
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b
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Construction of Minkowski Sum
1
2
3
4
5
P
Edges of P and R are labeled
counterclockwise
b
1
2
3
4
5
c
d
d
c
a
a
b
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1
2
3
4
5
a
b
c
d
1
2
3
4
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P
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R
a
b
c
d
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b
1
2
3
4
5
c
d
d
c
a
a
b
1
2
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a
b
c
d
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Rotation Moving a Ladder
Minkowski sum for ladder
at 0 rotation. Blockage
exists.
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Minkowski sum for ladder at
30 rotation. Blockage exists.
Minkowski sum for ladder at
60 rotation. Blockage
changed.
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Conversion to 3D Motion Problem
Bottom view
Front view. varies from 0 to
75.
Ladders reference point can move in the 3D space!
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Cell Decomposition
Minkowski sums
A
B
C
Cell decomposition
1
0
8
9
2
1
3
4
5
6
7
Obstacles

R
Ladder
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A Cell is the collection of all free points labeled
with the same front/back edge label pairs.
A: (3,2); B: (3,8); C: (1,9)
Cell decomposition has discontinuities when
ladder is oriented similar to an edge.
There are finite number of ladder rotation where
cell decomposition is changing.
New cells can appear and old ones may disappear.
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5
6
7
1
0
8
9
2
1
3
4

R
A
B
C disappeared
Ladder is rotated
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In Connectivity Graph G nodes are cells of decomposition and edges are
connecting nodes corresponding to adjacent cells in free area (a kind of dual
graph).
A: (3,2)
B: (3,8)
(1,8)
C: (1,9)
(1,)
(10,)
(5,)
(3,)
G0
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(4,)
(1,)
(10,)
(5,)
(3,)
A: (3,2)
B:
(3,8)
(1,8)
(7,8)
Critical Orientations correspond to slants of edges.
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Connectivity Graph G is constructed by stacking the connectivity
graphs G corresponding to the critical orientations.
Vertices of two distinct G are connected iff they are labeled with the
same edge pair. Starting from G0, G are added in increasing order of ,
thus creating a layered 3D graph.
A paths from start to goal if exists can be found by a BFS algorithm.
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History