Springer Tracts in Advanced RoboticsVolume 47

Editors: Bruno Siciliano · Oussama Khatib · Frans Groen

Srinivas Akella, Nancy M. Amato,Wesley H. Huang, Bud Mishra (Eds.)

Algorithmic Foundation ofRobotics VIISelected Contributions of the SeventhInternational Workshop on the AlgorithmicFoundations of Robotics

ABC

Professor Bruno Siciliano, Dipartimento di Informatica e Sistemistica, Università di Napoli Federico II,Via Claudio 21, 80125 Napoli, Italy, E-mail: siciliano@unina.it

Professor Oussama Khatib, Robotics Laboratory, Department of Computer Science, Stanford University,Stanford, CA 94305-9010, USA, E-mail: khatib@cs.stanford.edu

Professor Frans Groen, Department of Computer Science, Universiteit van Amsterdam, Kruislaan 403,1098 SJ Amsterdam, The Netherlands, E-mail: groen@science.uva.nl

Editors

Srinivas AkellaDepartment of Computer ScienceRensselaer Polytechnic Institute110 Eighth StreetTroy, New York 12180USAE-Mail: sakella@cs.rpi.edu

Nancy M. AmatoDepartment of Computer ScienceTexas A&M UniversityCollege Station, Texas 77843USAE-Mail: amato@cs.tamu.edu

Wesley H. HuangApplied Perception, Inc.220 Executive Drive, Suite 400Cranberry Township, PA 16066E-Mail: wes@appliedperception.com

Bud MishraDepartment of Computer ScienceNew York UniversityCourant Inst, 251 Mercer StNew York, NY 10012USAE-Mail: mishra@nyu.edu

ISBN 978-3-540-68404-6 e-ISBN 978-3-540-68405-3

DOI 10.1007/978-3-540-68405-3

Springer Tracts in Advanced Robotics ISSN 1610-7438

Library of Congress Control Number: 2008927063

c©2008 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved, whether the whole or part of the material isconcerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting,reproduction on microfilm or in any other way, and storage in data banks. Duplication of this publication orparts thereof is permitted only under the provisions of the German Copyright Law of September 9, 1965, inits current version, and permission for use must always be obtained from Springer. Violations are liable forprosecution under the German Copyright Law.

The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, etc. in this publication does not imply,even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws andregulations and therefore free for general use.

Typeset & Cover Design: Scientific Publishing Services Pvt. Ltd., Chennai, India.

Printed in acid-free paper

5 4 3 2 1 0

springer.com

Editorial Advisory Board

Herman Bruyninckx, KU Leuven, BelgiumRaja Chatila, LAAS, FranceHenrik Christensen, Georgia Institute of Technology, USAPeter Corke, CSIRO, AustraliaPaolo Dario, Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna Pisa, ItalyRüdiger Dillmann, Universität Karlsruhe, GermanyKen Goldberg, UC Berkeley, USAJohn Hollerbach, University of Utah, USAMakoto Kaneko, Osaka University, JapanLydia Kavraki, Rice University, USASukhan Lee, Sungkyunkwan University, KoreaTim Salcudean, University of British Columbia, CanadaSebastian Thrun, Stanford University, USAYangsheng Xu, Chinese University of Hong Kong, PRCShin’ichi Yuta, Tsukuba University, Japan

STAR (Springer Tracts in Advanced Robotics) has been promotedunder the auspices of EURON (European Robotics Research Network)

ROBOTICSResearch

Network

European

EURON

* *

***

***

***

*

Foreword

By the dawn of the new millennium, robotics has undergone a major transfor-mation in scope and dimensions. This expansion has been brought about bythe maturity of the field and the advances in its related technologies. From alargely dominant industrial focus, robotics has been rapidly expanding into thechallenges of the human world. The new generation of robots is expected tosafely and dependably co-habitat with humans in homes, workplaces, and com-munities, providing support in services, entertainment, education, healthcare,manufacturing, and assistance.

Beyond its impact on physical robots, the body of knowledge robotics hasproduced is revealing a much wider range of applications reaching across diverseresearch areas and scientific disciplines, such as: biomechanics, haptics, neuro-sciences, virtual prototyping, animation, surgery, and sensor networks amongothers. In return, the challenges of the new emerging areas are proving an abun-dant source of stimulation and insights for the field of robotics. It is indeed atthe intersection of disciplines that the most striking advances happen.

The goal of the series of Springer Tracts in Advanced Robotics (STAR) is tobring, in a timely fashion, the latest advances and developments in robotics onthe basis of their significance and quality. It is our hope that the wider dissemina-tion of research developments will stimulate more exchanges and collaborationsamong the research community and contribute to further advancement of thisrapidly growing field.

This volume is the outcome of the seventh edition of the biennial WorkshopAlgorithmic Foundations of Robotics (WAFR). Edited by S. Akella, N.M. Am-ato, W.H. Huang, and B. Mishra, the book offers a collection of a broad rangeof topics in advanced robotics. The contents of these contributions represent across-section of the current state of research from one particular aspect: algo-rithms, and how they reflect on the theoretical basis of subsequent developments.Validation of algorithms, design concepts, or techniques is the common threadrunning through this focused collection.

VIII Foreword

Rich by topics and authoritative contributors, WAFR culminates with thisunique reference on the current developments and new directions in the field ofalgorithmic foundations. A fine addition to the series!

Naples, Italy Bruno SicilianoApril 2008 STAR Editor

Preface

Algorithms are a fundamental component of robotic systems: they control orreason about motion and perception in the physical world. They receive inputfrom noisy sensors, consider geometric and physical constraints, and operateon the world through imprecise actuators. The design and analysis of robotalgorithms therefore raises a unique combination of questions in control theory,computational and differential geometry, and computer science.

The Workshop on the Algorithmic Foundations of Robotics (WAFR) is amulti-disciplinary single-track workshop with submitted papers and invited talkson advances on algorithmic problems in robotics. It has been held every otheryear since 1994 and has an established reputation as one of the most (if not themost) important venues for presenting algorithmic work related to robotics.

As you will see, the topics of interest in WAFR are very broad since the focusis on algorithm development and analysis rather than on specific problems or ap-plications. Increasingly, robotics algorithms are finding use in areas far beyondthe traditional scope of robots. One of the most important aspects of WAFRis its informal atmosphere which allows a frank exchange of new, previouslyunpublished ideas. In particular, WAFR has been an occasion for graduate stu-dents to meet and interact with more senior researchers who many times are notaccessible to students at the larger robotics conferences.

The seventh WAFR was held July 16–18, 2006, in New York City at theTribeca Grand Hotel in lower Manhattan.WAFR 2006 had a record number ofsubmissions and a record attendance with 106 registrants, just over 50 students.In addition to the 32 contributed papers contained in this volume, the workshopfeatured six invited speakers, including both researchers who defined the fieldand who are today defining the frontiers of the field – in several cases the samepeople: James Gimzewski (UCLA), Jessica K. Hodgins (CMU), Jean-ClaudeLatombe (Stanford), Tomas Lozano-Perez (MIT), Jacob Schwartz (NYU), andSebastian Thrun (Stanford).

WAFR 2006 had a very strong program of 32 contributed technical papers.These papers were selected from 62 submissions by a rigorous evaluation process,with each submission being reviewed by at least 3 members of the program

X Preface

committee. The authors of selected papers were invited to submit expandedversions of their WAFR 2006 papers to a special issue of the International Journalof Robotics Research.

We are extremely grateful to the program committee for their careful and in-sightful reviews. The program committee members were: O. Burchan Bayazit, An-tonio Bicchi, Greg Chirikjian, Mike Erdmann, Dan Halperin, Hirohisa Hirukawa,Seth Hutchinson, Lydia Kavraki, James Kuffner, Vijay Kumar, Jean-Paul Lau-mond, Steve LaValle, Ming Lin, Yoshi Nakamura, Dinesh Pai, Elon Rimon, JackSnoeyink, Dezhen Song, Frank van der Stappen, and Gaurav Sukhatme.

This meeting would not have been possible without the dedicated work andassistance of many individuals and organizations. We have many thanks to give:to Kay Jones from Texas A&M for overall support and logistics; to the studentvolunteers from Rensselaer and from Texas A&M for their diligent work; toour institutions (NYU, Rensselaer, and Texas A&M) for their support; to theNational Science Foundation for the student travel grants that provided supportto 38 students; to Microsoft for sponsoring the banquet cruise; and, of course,to the WAFR steering committee for their advice and suggestions.

Thank you all for making WAFR 2006 a WAFR to remember!

Srinivas AkellaNancy M. AmatoWesley H. Huang

Bud Mishra

Contents

Part I: Probabilistic Roadmap Methods (PRMs)

Quantitative Analysis of Nearest-Neighbors Search inHigh-Dimensional Sampling-Based Motion PlanningErion Plaku, Lydia E. Kavraki 3

Path Deformation RoadmapsLeonard Jaillet, Thierry Simeon 19

Workspace-Based Connectivity Oracle: An Adaptive SamplingStrategy for PRM PlanningHanna Kurniawati, David Hsu 35

Incremental Map Generation (IMG)Dawen Xie, Marco Morales, Roger Pearce, Shawna Thomas,Jyh-Ming Lien, Nancy M. Amato 53

Part II: Planning for Movable and Moving Obstacles

Caging Polygons with Two and Three FingersMostafa Vahedi, A. Frank van der Stappen 71

An Effective Framework for Path Planning Amidst MovableObstaclesDennis Nieuwenhuisen, A. Frank van der Stappen,Mark H. Overmars 87

Planning the Shortest Safe Path Amidst UnpredictablyMoving ObstaclesJur van den Berg, Mark Overmars 103

XII Contents

Planning Among Movable Obstacles with ArtificialConstraintsMike Stilman, James J. Kuffner 119

Part III: Navigation, SLAM, and Error Models for Filtering/Control

Inferring and Enforcing Relative Constraints in SLAMKristopher R. Beevers, Wesley H. Huang 139

Second-Order Theory of Error Propagation on Motion GroupsYunfeng Wang, Gregory S. Chirikjian 155

Extensive Representations and Algorithms for NonlinearFiltering and EstimationEthan Stump, Ben Grocholsky, Vijay Kumar 169

Part IV: Geometric Computations and Applications

An Experimental Study of Weighted k-Link Shortest PathAlgorithmsOvidiu Daescu, Joseph S.B. Mitchell, Simeon Ntafos,James D. Palmer, Chee K. Yap 187

Low-Discrepancy Curves and Efficient Coverage of SpaceSubramanian Ramamoorthy, Ram Rajagopal, Qing Ruan,Lothar Wenzel 203

The Snowblower ProblemEsther M. Arkin, Michael A. Bender, Joseph S.B. Mitchell,Valentin Polishchuk 219

Stratified Deformation Space and Path Planning for a PlanarClosed Chain with Revolute JointsL. Han, L. Rudolph, J. Blumenthal, I. Valodzin 235

Part V: Motion Planning

Competitive Disconnection Detection in On-Line MobileRobot NavigationYoav Gabriely, Elon Rimon 253

A Simple Path Non-existence Algorithm Using C-ObstacleQueryLiangjun Zhang, Young J. Kim, Dinesh Manocha 269

Contents XIII

RESAMPL: A Region-Sensitive Adaptive Motion PlannerSamuel Rodriguez, Shawna Thomas, Roger Pearce,Nancy M. Amato 285

Motion Planning for a Six-Legged Lunar RobotKris Hauser, Timothy Bretl, Jean-Claude Latombe, Brian Wilcox 301

Part VI: Applications in Medicine and Biology

Constant-Curvature Motion Planning Under Uncertaintywith Applications in Image-Guided Medical Needle SteeringRon Alterovitz, Michael Branicky, Ken Goldberg 319

Extended Abstract: Structure Determination of SymmetricProtein Complexes by a Complete Search of SymmetryConfiguration Space Using NMR Distance RestraintsShobha Potluri, Anthony K. Yan, James J. Chou, Bruce R. Donald,Chris Bailey-Kellogg 335

Part VII: Control and Planning for Mechanical Systems

The Minimum-Time Trajectories for an Omni-DirectionalVehicleDevin J. Balkcom, Paritosh A. Kavathekar, Matthew T. Mason 343

Mechanical Manipulation Using Reduced Models ofUncertaintyTodd D. Murphey 359

Motion Planning for Variable Inertia Mechanical SystemsElie A. Shammas, Howie Choset, Alfred A. Rizzi 375

Sampling-Based Falsification and Verification of Controllersfor Continuous Dynamic SystemsPeng Cheng, Vijay Kumar 391

Part VIII: Sensor Networks and Reconfiguration

Surrounding Nodes in Coordinate-Free NetworksR. Ghrist, D. Lipsky, S. Poduri, G. Sukhatme 409

Passive Mobile Robot Localization within a Fixed BeaconFieldCarrick Detweiler, John Leonard, Daniela Rus, Seth Teller 425

XIV Contents

Efficient Motion Planning Strategies for Large-Scale SensorNetworksJason C. Derenick, Christopher R. Mansley, John R. Spletzer 441

Asymptotically Optimal Kinodynamic Motion Planning forSelf-reconfigurable RobotsJohn H. Reif, Sam Slee 457

Part IX: Planning for Games, VR, and Humanoid Motion

Visibility-Based Pursuit-Evasion with Bounded SpeedBenjamın Tovar, Steven M. LaValle 475

Planning Near-Optimal Corridors Amidst ObstaclesRon Wein, Jur van den Berg, Dan Halperin 491

Using Motion Primitives in Probabilistic Sample-BasedPlanning for Humanoid RobotsKris Hauser, Timothy Bretl, Kensuke Harada, Jean-Claude Latombe 507

Author Index 523