Approximate Cell Decomposition

Abstract

In this chapter we investigate another cell decomposition approach to path planning which is known as the approximate cell decomposition approach. It consists again of representing the robot’s free space C _free as a collection of cells. But it differs from the exact cell decomposition approach in that the cells are now required to have a simple prespecified shape, e.g. a rectangloid shape. Such cells do not in general allow us to represent free space exactly. Instead, a conservative approximation of this space is constructed, hence the name of the approach. As with the exact cell decomposition approach, a connectivity graph representing the adjacency relation among the cells is built and searched for a path.