A new potential field method for robot path planning
Yunfeng Wang, Gregory S. Chirikjian · 2002
Presents an artificial potential field method for path planning of non-spherical single-body robots. The model simulates steady-state heat transfer with variable thermal conductivity. The optimal path problem is then the same as a heat flow with minimal thermal resistance. The novelty of this technique is that the thermal resistance in the configuration space for all different orientations of the robot can be superimposed. This reduces a search on R/sup n//spl times/SO(n) to one on R/sup n/ followed by a search on SO(n). Examples are presented to demonstrate the approach.