An aid to multi-path planning of all-terrain land vehicles

This paper presents a system which is able to assist human planners in selecting the best paths and motions for teleoperated or autonomous land vehicles on uneven terrains. Given a discrete terrain model, as well as criteria and constraints of the mission and of the vehicles, a search algorithm is presented, which computes the entire set of acceptable motions within the /spl epsiv/-admissible range. Thus, the system can cope with the a priori uncertainties in the terrain models and of the vehicle's dynamics, and provides alternative routes in a case of large disturbances. An example is given, which considers the near minimum-time paths of an electric vehicle on a terrain described initially by a 1000 pixels/spl times/1000 pixels elevation map.<>