MOTION PLANNING FOR FLEXIBLE SHAPES (SYSTEMS WITH MANY DEGREES OF FREEDOM) - A SURVEY

This article provides a brief tutorial-cum-overview of motion planning for ''flexible'' shapes. The article takes the point of view that mot ion planning for flexible shapes, in a broad sense, essentially amount s to motion planning for systems with many degrees of freedom (dofs), a well-studied problem in robotics. We start with the basics of motion planning including an introduction to some key concepts, survey a num ber of recent approaches to solve the motion planning for systems with many dofs, discuss the application of some of these approaches to mot ion planning for flexible shapes, and report, on some recent work in t his area.