Robotic motion planning aspires to match the ease and efficiency with which humans move through and interact with their environment. Yet state of the art robotic planners fall short of human abilities; they are slower in computation, and the results are often of lower quality. One stumbling block in traditional motion planning is that points and paths are often considered in isolation. Many planners fail to recognize that substantial shared information exists among path alternatives. Exploitation of the geometric and topological relationships among path alternatives can therefore lead to increased efficiency and competency. These benefits include: better-informed path sampling, dramatically faster collision checking, and a deeper understanding of the trade-offs in path selection. In path sampling, the principle of locality is introduced as a basis for constructing an adaptive, probabilistic, geometric model to influence the selection of paths for collision test. Recognizing that collision testing consumes a sizable majority of planning time and that only collision-free paths provide value in selecting a path to execute on the robot, this model provides a significant increase in efficiency by

Abstract Robot motions typically originate from an uninformed path sampling process such as random or low-dispersion sampling. We demonstrate an alternative approach to path sampling that closes the loop on the expensive collision-testing process. Although all necessary information for collision-testing a path is known to the planner, that information is typically stored in a relatively unavailable form in a costmap. By summarizing the most salient data in a more accessible form, our process delivers a denser sampling of the free space per unit time than open-loop sampling techniques. We obtain this result by probabilistically modeling—in real time and with minimal information—the locations of obstacles, based on collision test results. We demonstrate up to a 780 % increase in paths surviving collision test. 1

Abstract — We propose a motion planning algorithm that reasons about tradeoffs between the discrete decision problems and continuous optimization problems faced by a mobile robot navigating through a cluttered environment. Discrete decisions typically involve transient options as the robot selects corridors to traverse. By contrast, optimization occurs within open spaces among homotopic paths. We utilize properties of local path sets to detect decisions of immediate importance and select routes that maximize the chance of future success. I.

Abstract — We propose a motion planning algorithm that reasons about tradeoffs between the discrete decision problems and continuous optimization problems faced by a mobile robot navigating through a cluttered environment. Discrete decisions typically involve transient options as the robot selects corridors to traverse. By contrast, optimization occurs within open spaces among homotopic paths. We utilize properties of local path sets to detect decisions of immediate importance and select routes that maximize the chance of future success. I.

Robotic motion planning aspires to match the ease and efficiency with which humans move through and interact with their environment. Yet state of the art robotic planners fall short of human abilities; they are slower in computation, and the results are often of lower quality. One stumbling block in traditional motion planning is that points and paths are often considered in isolation. Many planners fail to recognize that substantial shared information exists among path alternatives. Exploitation of the geometric and topological relationships among path alternatives can therefore lead to increased efficiency and competency. These benefits include: better-informed path sampling, dramatically faster collision checking, and a deeper understanding of the trade-offs in path selection. In path sampling, the principle of locality is introduced as a basis for constructing an adaptive, probabilistic, geometric model to influence the selection of paths for collision test. Recognizing that collision testing consumes a sizable majority of