Trailer truck trajectory optimization: the transportation of components for the Airbus A380

European aircraft manufacturer, Airbus, has started a program to develop the largest aircraft ever built, the Airbus A380, which would be able to carry between 550 to 800 passengers on two decks. The six components of the airplane are to be produced in different European cities. They need to be transported from these cities to Toulouse, France, for assembly, and several means of transportation have been investigated. The sizes of the freights, the length of the itinerary, and the narrowness of the critical passages constitute a challenge that classical transportation techniques in the domain of oversized convoys cannot easily overcome. Therefore, Airbus and the French national agency in charge of road management launched a research and development project divided into two parts. The objective of the first part is to adapt functions first to develop for mobile robots to the complex kinematics of trailer-truck systems and integrating these functions into a software platform. The second part of the project aims to define and develop a computer-aided driving system on board the vehicles in order to help the drivers carry out their task. This paper provides a brief overview of the state of the art in trajectory planning for mobile robots and vehicles, and discusses the development of original solutions to address both the kinematic complexity of one of the vehicles and the need to optimize the distance to obstacles.