Motion Planning With Convex Swept Volume Segments
Abstract This paper presents a swept volume approach for distance-to-contact computation in motion planning. The approach is based on approximating the swept volumes of moving objects with convex segments formulated for the use of quadratic programming in distance-to-contact calculations. This swept volume strategy is designed to conservatively estimate the distance-to-contact between moving and static objects and is well suited for the planning of motions using optimization methods. It has been adapted to obtain convenient distance-to-contact gradient information which is an important factor in the application of efficient optimization algorithms to the motion planning process. The paper describes the generation of the swept volume segments and applies the process to examples of robot motion planning in three dimensions using an SQP optimization strategy.