Motion planning (a.k.a., the "navigation problem", the "piano mover's problem") is a term used in robotics for the process of detailing a task into discrete motions.
For example, consider navigating a mobile robot inside a building to a distant waypoint. It should execute this task while avoiding walls and not falling down stairs. A motion planning algorithm would take a description of these tasks as input, and produce the speed and turning commands sent to the robot's wheels. Motion planning algorithms might address robots with a larger number of joints (e.g., industrial manipulators), more complex tasks (e.g. manipulation of objects), different constraints (e.g., a car that can only drive forward), and uncertainty (e.g. imperfect models of the environment or robot).
Motion planning has several robotics applications, such as autonomy, automation, and robot design in CAD software, as well as applications in other fields, such as animating digital characters, video game AI, architectural design, robotic surgery, and the study of biological molecules.
Read more about Motion Planning: Concepts, Algorithms, Completeness and Performance, Applications
Famous quotes containing the words motion and/or planning:
“When desire, having rejected reason and overpowered judgment which leads to right, is set in the direction of the pleasure which beauty can inspire, and when again under the influence of its kindred desires it is moved with violent motion towards the beauty of corporeal forms, it acquires a surname from this very violent motion, and is called love.”
—Socrates (469–399 B.C.)
“When we are planning for posterity, we ought to remember that virtue is not hereditary.”
—Thomas Paine (1737–1809)