On the ''Piano Movers'' problem. II: General techniques for computing topological properties of real algebraic manifolds (Q760006)

The ''Piano Movers'' problem [the authors, Commun. Pure Appl. Math. 36, 345-398 (1983; see the review above] is that of finding a continuous motion which will take a given collection of bodies from a given initial position to a desired final position, but which is subject to certain geometric constraints during the motion. Given two positions and orientations of the whole collection of bodies, the authors study the problem of the existence of a path between the two configurations for continuous motion of the whole collection of bodies. They show that this problem can be efficiently handled by a variant of Tarski's algorithm [\textit{A. Tarski}, A decision method for elementary algebra and geometry, 2nd rev. Ed., Univ. of Calif. Press, Berkeley (1951); see the review of the first edition (1948; Zbl 0035.006)].