Motion planning for a steering-constrained robot through moderate obstacles

Most mobile robots use steering mechanisms to guide their motion. Such mechanisms have stops that constrain the rate at which the robot can change its direction. We study a point robot in the plane subject to such constraints, in the presence of a class of obstacles we call moderate obstacles. We consider the case in which the robot has a reverse gear that allows it to back up, as well as the case when it does not, All our algorithms run in polynomial time and produce paths whose lengths are either optimal or within an additive constant of optimal.

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