SPATIAL PLANNING: A CONFIGURATION SPACE

APPROACH
Alex Fernando Aguirre Paredes
afparedes@espoch.edu.ec
Carlos Daniel Arcos Guamn
carcos@espoch.edu.ec
Vctor Jos Huilca Cabay
vhuilca@espoch.edu.ec
Marco Antonio Vsquez Ojeda
mvasquez@espoch.edu.ec
Cristhian Patricio Vinueza Escobar
cvinueza@espoch.edu.ec

INTRODUCTION
The interest in geometric problems have been grown in
the last times, one of them problems that include placing
objects among others, or moving an object through other
objects without causing collision, this problems are called
spatial planning problems. The paper presents algorithms
for computing constraints on the position of an object, in
applications where we have to arrange or move objects
without collision. The solution is based on the
characterization of the position and orientation of an object
as a single point in the space configuration, each coordinate
represents a degree of freedom; the forbidden configurations
to the object (portions of the space configuration) are called
configuration space obstacles.
Some applications of spatial planning are: the layout of
templates on a piece of stock, to minimize the area of stock
required, machining a part using a controlled machine, which
requires plotting the path of one or more cutting surfaces to
produce the desired part, for mentioning.
SPATIAL PLANNING PROBLEMS
Into spatial planning problems we have two common cases:
1. The findspace problem: determinate where an object A
can be placed into a specified region R, that A doesn't
collide with any of the objects Bj in R. For a position A
inside R, such that for all Bj:
A Bj =
This is called the safe position.
2. The findpath problem: determinate how to move A
from an origin position to a destiny position in R
without causing collisions with the Bj objects. Find a
path for A from s to g such that A is always in R and all
positions on the path are safe. This is called the safe
path.
The algorithm for these two problems has two main steps:
1. Build a data structure to find the solution
2. Search the data structure to find the solution
The configuration space objects represent all the
positions of A that cause collisions with Bj, with the
information of these obstacles find a position or a path
outside the configuration of the configuration space objects
result easier.
The term configuration is used to unify the concept of
degrees of freedom (DOF), this configuration is a set of
parameters that characterize the position of every point in the
object. The configuration of a polyhedron is related to an
initial configuration, in this initial configuration, a fixed
vertex is matches with the origin of the reference system, this
vertex is called reference vertex of A (rvA).
The number of parameters to specify the configuration
of a k-dimension object, is d, = + 2 , the first term
represents the necessary parameters to specify the position of
rvA, the second one is the parameters for defining the
orientation, this d-dimensional space is known as CSPACE. A
configuration x is (A)x, and its initial configuration is (A)0.
An object defined in R2 the configuration is specified by
(x,y) the position relative of the reference vertex, and is the
rotation about rvA. For objects defined in R3, the
configurations are elements of R6, three translations and
three rotations are necessary to define a rigid 3D object.
In the CSPACE not all the configurations are legal,
because some of them would cause collision, these illegal
configurations are result the Bj objects. The CSPACE obstacle
due to B, COA(B), is defined as:
= { CSPACE | A x B }

This means if a x configuration belongs to the Cspace
obstacle, x is not safe. In the other hand, if x doesnt belong
to COA(B), x is safe for all Bj objects. Other important
concept is the Cspace interior, CIA(B) this defines some
configurations of A inside B.
= { CSPACE | A x B} calculation is enough" is not specified (CIA (B) required to
With these concepts, the solution of Findspace and
Findpath is a configuration or sequence of configurations
outside the Cspace obstacles, but inside the Cspace interior.
The findpath problem also can be formulated as a graph
search problem, that connect all pairs COxy(B) vertices,
including start and goal, generating a line that doesnt
intersect any obstacle, however the paths generated by this
algorithm are susceptible to inaccuracies, it only works in
exact models.
The paper presents some algorithms for computing
COxy(B), when the rotation is fixed and the polygons are
allowed to rotate. Also, there is an algorithm for computing
COxyz(B), polyhedrons with fixed orientation, and the
characterization for polyhedrons that are allowed to rotate.
The idea is to recursively subdivide the work area until
the area "big enough" for the object was found, this approach
has several drawbacks:
1. No overlapping any subdivision strategy potentially
useful areas break.
2. The application of the predicate "great general, the
implement this predicate).
However, once the barriers have been calculated
Cspace, Warnock search space to a point, any free area is
"large enough". Surveys define solutions to problems and
presented in FindPath for manipulators, which describes the
transformation of simple objects that define points of safety
during the movement of a mobile robot that uses a graph
search techniques. FindPath an alternative approach for two
dimensions are rotations in the empty spaces representing
objects outside and is shown as generalized cones, the
algorithm defines the object in motion by a convex polygon
and the legal rotations characterized bounding polygon along
each column.

With 3D objects, the Cspace obstacle is a complicated

object into a 6-D Cspace. An alternative is dividing these
objects in a sequence of low-dim projections from a high-
dim object. For a 3-D (x,y,) Cspace we could approximate it
by its projections on the 2-D plane (x,y). A better alternative
is to divide the whole range into n smaller ranges, and find
the obstacle in that range (-slice of the obstacle), the
projection of this slices generates an approximation of the
obstacles. The findspace or findpath solution in any slice or
slices represents an approximate real solution. The accuracy
can bue adjusted by the range of parameters of the slice.

APPLICATION IN INDUSTRIAL ROBOTS

For projections of planning for industrial robots
previously developed under the findpath algorithm analysis
polyhedral but if they need.

In the joints of robots have presented the relation

compulsorily movements polyhedral analysis similarities so
that linkage assembly completely represents the position and
orientation of these movements it is clearly a representation
of the actual geometry and shape the articulations, but in
some cases not clearly represents these details so it can cause
overlapping of adjacent links.

RELATED WORK IN SPATIAL PLANNING

In the definition of problem findspace used here is
based on a previous approach to this problem is described in
an application Warnock algorithm for the hidden line
removal.