OPTIMAL AND CONFORMING MOTION OF A POINT IN A CONSTRAINED PLANE

This paper deals with automatic generation of the motion of a point un der both geometric and kinematic constraints. Optimal point paths are generated which are not only free of collisions with polygonal obstacl es representing geometric constraints but also conform to kinematic co nstraints such as limits on velocity and acceleration. A specified min imum clearance from the boundaries of the obstacles is also satisfied. The new computational tools employed are an efficient representation of the free space, and a new motion generation algorithm with a comput ational time complexity of only O(n3 log n), where n is the total numb er of obstacle vertices. The algorithm finds the shortest or fastest c urved path that also conforms with preset constraints on the motion of the point.