Path planning of 3-D objects using a new workspace model

The paper proposes a collision avoidance algorithm to solve the problem of (local) path planning for a three-dimensional (3D) object moving among polyhedral obstacles. The algorithm is based on a generalized potential model of workspace (J.-H. Chuang, 1998) which assumes that the boundary of every 3D object is uniformly charged. According to the proposed approach, the repulsive force and torque between the moving object and the obstacles due to the above model is used to adjust the position and orientation of the object so as to keep it away from the obstacles while passing through a bottleneck in the free space. Simulation results demonstrate that the path of a 3D object thus obtained is indeed safe and spatially smooth. The adopted potential field is analytically tractable which makes the path planning efficient.