AN EFFICIENT STRATEGY FOR ROBOT NAVIGATION IN UNKNOWN ENVIRONMENT

We study the ratio of the dead-free path length made by a new strategy to the shortest path length in unknown environment containing rectang ular and rectilinear obstacles satisfying some limitations on their as pect ratios and side lengths. We show that the ratio is at most arbitr arily close to 1 + 3/5f, as n grows, if the start point and the target are at the same horizontal level, where the aspect ratio of each obst acle is at most f. We also study the ratio for unknown environment whe re the start point and the target may be at different levels.