New hardware collision checker for robot path planning
Vibeke Libby · Proceedings of SPIE, the International Society for Optical Engineering/Proceedings of SPIE · 1992
A new set of collision checking and obstacle avoidance algorithms has been developed and implemented in both hardware and software. The method allows for unlimited vector checks against an unlimited set of objects. Dependent upon the application, the single card hardware performance ranges from 1 million line sorts per second to hundreds of millions. Therefore, due to the high algorithm speed, the overall system performance only becomes limited by the choice of processor and the speed of the interface. The hardware is presently configured to process large blocks of objects and data (8K) at a sorting rate of one point against eight objects at a rate of 200 million points per second. The trade-off between choice of algorithm and performance is discussed.