Engineering:Sphere world

A sphere world is a mathematical concept used in robotic motion planning. Essentially, if the environment is represented as a sphere, and the robot and obstacles within the environment are represented as spheres, then it is possible to construct navigation functions which create paths from a start position to a goal position. Although the real world is rarely composed of spheres, sphere worlds are still useful for motion planning, as they are topologically equivalent to star worlds.

See also

• Navigation function
• Sphere-world
• Star world
• Forest of stars
• Topology

References

• E. Rimon, D. Koditschek Exact Robot Navigation Using Artificial Potential Functions IEEE Transactions on Robotics and Automation, Vol 8, No 5, Oct 1992