Offroad Robot Path Planning Using Precomputed Collision Footprints
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Solution Overview
Problem
Path planning and collision checking for autonomous robots is computationally complex due to the large number of robot states that need to be checked, leading to increased time and effort in generating collision-free paths, especially in large and complex environments.
Innovation Solution
A path planning and collision avoidance system using a look-up table that stores pre-computed footprints of a robot at various orientations and joint states, allowing for fast collision checking by querying the table for each candidate path.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If traditional path planning and collision checking algorithms are used to generate collision-free paths, then navigation safety is ensured, but computational time and complexity increase exponentially with environment size
Solution Approach 1:
The patent pre-computes and stores robot footprints at multiple orientations and joint states in a look-up table before path planning begins. This preliminary action eliminates the need for real-time collision checking computations during path generation, significantly reducing computational time while maintaining collision-free navigation safety.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent creates simplified footprint representations of the robot at different configurations and stores them in a look-up table. During path planning, the system queries this table for pre-computed footprints rather than performing complex collision checks, effectively using copied data to replace computationally intensive operations.
2Manufacturing precision
If the number of robot states checked increases to ensure optimal path planning, then path optimality improves, but computational effort and time requirements increase
Solution Approach 1:
The system pre-computes footprints for all possible robot orientations and joint states during an initialization phase, storing them in a look-up table. This allows the path planning algorithm to query pre-computed data rather than perform complex calculations for each state, maintaining path optimality while reducing computational complexity during actual navigation.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent dynamically adapts the collision checking process by querying pre-computed footprints from the look-up table based on the current robot configuration. This dynamic approach allows the system to handle varying robot states efficiently without increasing computational complexity, as each state's footprint is retrieved in constant time from the pre-computed table.
Data Source
AI summary
A robot generates a cell grid (e.g., occupancy grid) representation of a geographic area. The occupancy grid may include a plurality of evenly sized cells, and each cell may be assigned an occupancy status, which can be used to indicate the location of obstacles present in the geographic area. Footprints for the robot corresponding to a plurality of potential positions of the robot may be generated and stored in a look-up table. The robot may generate a planned path for the robot to navigate within the geographic area by generating a plurality of candidate paths, each candidate path comprising a plurality of candidate robot poses. For each candidate robot pose, the robot may query the look-up table for a corresponding robot footprint to determine if a collision will occur.