Motion planning using transient pixel representations

A method for finding optimal paths is investigated for a time-varying domain. The environment contains a set of time-varying obstacles whose motions are known. In a time-varying environment, paths are time-dependent, i.e., a path needs to be specified as a function of time, since connectivity in the environment changes over time. Given a time-varying environment, a start time, and a start location, a method is presented for finding a collision-free path from start to goal points for a robot subject to a speed bound. This method generates a path with minimum-length and a path with minimum-delay for each time interval in which the goal location is reachable. The problem is formulated by using a transient pixel representation to model an arbitrary time-varying environment and a concept of fast-to-short path lists