Path Finding with Variable Speed and Turning Radius

Under conditions requiring line-of-sight (LOS) communications, military units can benefit from a relaying system to connect nodes that do not have LOS to each other. An autonomous vehicle capable of positioning itself at an appropriate location, or moving between multiple locations as needed to maintain communications, can provide this capability while reducing the risk to personnel. If such a vehicle has sufficient capacity, it can also provide additional services such as local high-performance computing in an environment where these services would otherwise be unavailable. In order to move to the correct destination as quickly as possible, an off road navigation system should consider the constraints imposed by vehicle dynamics, because the fastest feasible path may have little similarity to the shortest possible path. This paper presents a method of determining a path with minimal travel time, and analyzes the effects that knowledge about the terrain has on the results of this algorithm.