On One Approach to Robot Motion Planning

• Published in: Braverman Readings in Machine Learning. Key Ideas from Inception to Current State pp. 213 - 228
• Main Author: Lumelsky, Vladimir
• Format: Book Chapter
• Language: English
• Published: Cham Springer International Publishing
• Series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science
• Subjects: Motion planning algorithms; Robotics; Sensing; Topology
• ISBN: 9783319994918; 3319994913
• ISSN: 0302-9743; 1611-3349
• DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-99492-5_10

As this essay is meant for a book devoted to the memory of Dr. E. Braverman, a few words about my relation to him seem in order. Professor Braverman was my PhD thesis advisor in 1964–1967 at the Institute of Control Problems of the USSR National Academy, in Moscow. After graduation I had stayed at the same Institute, first as junior and then as senior research fellow, and we remained close, up until my emigration to USA in 1975. His sharp intellect, incredible human warmth, and wide cultural and scientific interests were there for us, a circle of friends which I, a younger man, was generously accepted to. This essay presents a big-picture description of a scientific approach to theory and practice of automatic moving machinery such as robots, and directions it has led to - all developed later on, in my years in America. What connects it to my time in the circle around M. Braverman is the skill for structured thinking that I was lucky to have been schooled in while associated with that circle.