Vehicle Motion Planning Using Stream Functions

Waydo, Stephen (2003) Vehicle Motion Planning Using Stream Functions. Technical Report. California Institute of Technology. [CaltechCDSTR:2003.001]

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Abstract

Borrowing a concept from hydrodynamic analysis, this paper presents stream functions which satisfy Laplace's equation as a local-minima free method for producing potential-field based navigation functions in two dimensions. These functions generate smoother paths (i.e. more suited to aircraft-like vehicles) than previous methods. A method is developed for constructing analytic stream functions to produce arbitrary vehicle behaviors while avoiding obstacles, and an exact solution for the case of a single uniformly moving obstacle is presented. The effects of introducing multiple obstacles are discussed and current work in this direction is detailed. Experimental results generated on the Cornell RoboFlag testbed are presented and discussed, as well as related work applying these methods to path planning for unmanned air vehicles.

EPrint Type:	Monograph (Technical Report)
Additional Information:	[Alternate URL: http://www.cds.caltech.edu/~waydo/papers/stream_TR.pdf]
Subjects:	All Records
ID Code:	35
Deposited By:	Stephen Waydo
Deposited On:	08 September 2003
Unique Identifier:	CaltechCDSTR:2003.001
Official Persistent URL:	http://resolver.caltech.edu/CaltechCDSTR:2003.001
Usage Policy:	You are granted permission for individual, educational, research and non-commercial reproduction, distribution, display and performance of this work in any format.

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