skip to main content
OSTI.GOV title logo U.S. Department of Energy
Office of Scientific and Technical Information

Title: Motion planning: A journey of robots, molecules, digital actors, and other artifacts

Abstract

During the past three decades, motion planning has emerged as a crucial and productive research area in robotics. In the mid-1980s, the most advanced planners were barely able to compute collision-free paths for objects crawling in planar workspaces. Today, planners efficiently deal with robots with many degrees of freedom in complex environments. Techniques also exist to generate quasi-optimal trajectories, coordinate multiple robots, deal with dynamic and kinematic constraints, and handle dynamic environments. This paper describes some of these achievements, presents new problems that have recently emerged, discusses applications likely to motivate future research, and finally gives expectations for the coming years. It stresses the fact that nonrobotics applications (e.g., graphic animation, surgical planning, computational biology) are growing in importance and are likely to shape future motion-planning research more than robotics itself.

Authors:
Publication Date:
Research Org.:
Stanford Univ., CA (US)
OSTI Identifier:
20005588
Resource Type:
Journal Article
Journal Name:
International Journal of Robotics Research
Additional Journal Information:
Journal Volume: 18; Journal Issue: 11; Other Information: PBD: Nov 1999; Journal ID: ISSN 0278-3649
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Subject:
32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATION; 99 MATHEMATICS, COMPUTING, AND INFORMATION SCIENCE; ROBOTS; RESEARCH PROGRAMS; MOTION; DEGREES OF FREEDOM; TRAJECTORIES

Citation Formats

Latombe, J C. Motion planning: A journey of robots, molecules, digital actors, and other artifacts. United States: N. p., 1999. Web. doi:10.1177/02783649922067753.
Latombe, J C. Motion planning: A journey of robots, molecules, digital actors, and other artifacts. United States. https://doi.org/10.1177/02783649922067753
Latombe, J C. 1999. "Motion planning: A journey of robots, molecules, digital actors, and other artifacts". United States. https://doi.org/10.1177/02783649922067753.
@article{osti_20005588,
title = {Motion planning: A journey of robots, molecules, digital actors, and other artifacts},
author = {Latombe, J C},
abstractNote = {During the past three decades, motion planning has emerged as a crucial and productive research area in robotics. In the mid-1980s, the most advanced planners were barely able to compute collision-free paths for objects crawling in planar workspaces. Today, planners efficiently deal with robots with many degrees of freedom in complex environments. Techniques also exist to generate quasi-optimal trajectories, coordinate multiple robots, deal with dynamic and kinematic constraints, and handle dynamic environments. This paper describes some of these achievements, presents new problems that have recently emerged, discusses applications likely to motivate future research, and finally gives expectations for the coming years. It stresses the fact that nonrobotics applications (e.g., graphic animation, surgical planning, computational biology) are growing in importance and are likely to shape future motion-planning research more than robotics itself.},
doi = {10.1177/02783649922067753},
url = {https://www.osti.gov/biblio/20005588}, journal = {International Journal of Robotics Research},
issn = {0278-3649},
number = 11,
volume = 18,
place = {United States},
year = {Mon Nov 01 00:00:00 EST 1999},
month = {Mon Nov 01 00:00:00 EST 1999}
}