Optimal and Conforming Motion of a Point in a Constrained Plane

Abstract

Abstract This paper deals with automatic generation of motion of a point under both geometric and non-geometric constraints. Optimal point paths are generated which are not only free of collisions with polygonal obstacles representing geometric constraints but also conform to non-geometric constraints such as speed of the motion, a maximum allowable change in the velocity vector and a minimum clearance from the obstacle boundaries. The concept of passage networks and conforming paths on the network are introduced. These are used to provide a new representation of the free space as well as a motion generation algorithm with a computational time complexity of only O(n3.log(n)), where n designates the total number of obstacle vertices. The algorithm finds the shortest or fastest (curved) path that also conforms with preset constraints on the motion of the point. The point paths generated are proved to be optimal while conforming to the constraints.