On the union of Jordan regions and collision-free translational motion amidst polygonal obstacles (Q1076976)

The main result of the paper is the following: Let \(\gamma_ 1,...,\gamma_ m\) be simple Jordan curves in the plane and \(K_ 1,...,K_ m\) be their respective interior regions; if, for each couple i,j\(\in \{1,...,m\}\), \(i\neq j\), \(\gamma_ i\) and \(\gamma_ j\) have at most two points in common, then the boundary of \(\cup \{K_ i; 1\leq i\leq m\}\) contains at most \(\max (2,6m-12)\) intersection points of the curves \(\gamma_ i\), \(1\leq i\leq m\), and this bound cannot be improved. An application to the planning of a collision-free translational motion of a convex polygon (B) amidst several (convex) polygonal obstacles \((A_ 1,...,A_ m)\) is also given.