Reliable robust path planner

Abstract

This paper addresses the problem of planning paths for a vehicle that are guaranteed to be safe in the presence of bounded uncertainty on the model of the vehicle, its sensors, and on the initial configuration. A new conceptual path planner based on rapidly-exploring random trees is proposed, which uses a set description of the uncertain configurations. A practical implementation of this path planner based on interval analysis is then described. It provides paths that could be safely followed by the vehicle during navigation, whatever the values taken by the uncertain quantities.