An approach to model arbitrarily shaped objects and its application to find-path problem

A systematic approach is presented for an arbitrary shaped object moving among obstacles. The approach consists of two algorithms, one for modeling the moving object as a union of circles and the other for the search of a collision-free path from the starting position to the goal position. Simulation results are included to show the validity and the applicability of the proposed approach. The main advantages of the proposed method are: no restriction on shapes of object and obstacles: no modeling is required for obstacles; and the forbidden area of a moving object remains unchanged regardless of the motion of the object