Path planning in 3D environments using the Normal Distributions Transform

Planning feasible paths in fully three-dimensional environments is a challenging problem. Application of existing algorithms typically requires the use of limited 3D representations that discard potentially useful information. This article proposes a novel approach to path planning that utilizes a full 3D representation directly: the Three-Dimensional Normal Distributions Transform (3D-NDT). The well known wavefront planner is modified to use 3D-NDT as a basis for map representation and evaluated using both indoor and outdoor data sets. The use of 3D-NDT for path planning is thus demonstrated to be a viable choice with good expressive capabilities.