Geometry and robotics. Workshop, Toulouse, France, May 26-28, 1988. Proceedings (Q1187703)

[The articles of this volume will not be indexed individually.] Motion planning for robots, in its precise and general form, is known to be a very hard problem. Nevertheless, practitioners have got to make their robots work. This workshop on geometry and robotics provided a meeting place for people building robots and for scientists from those areas that are mainly involved in the theoretical problems: (real) algebraic geometry and computational geometry. Consequently, the twenty papers published in this volume can (roughly) be split into three categories. First, there are six mathematical papers offering surveys on important issues like Sturm's theorem and the cylinderical algebraic decomposition, real curves, Grassmann geometry, homology, morphology, and Delaunay triangulations. Second, we find eight papers describing computational geometry approaches. Among them is a precise and efficient solution for computing a motion of a 2-dimensional object admist polygonal obstacles, path planning under kinematic constraints, computing the boundary of a cell in an arrangement of half-lines, and triangulation in 2- and 3-dimensional space. Third, there are six papers on practical methods, most of them involving approximation. Here, modelling becomes an important aspect. We also find work on contact manipulation and on coping with uncertainties. In both the practical and computational geometry approaches an emphasis is put on structuring free space by means of cell decomposition and graphs describing cell adjacency. This volume provides an interesting survey on results obtained in different areas that are related to the planning of robot motions. Contents: \textit{M. Coste}, Effective semialgebraic geometry (pp. 1-27); \textit{D. Duval}, \textit{M.-F. Roy}, Curves and computer algebra (pp. 28-42); \textit{J.-J. Risler}, Placement of polygons (pp. 43-48); \textit{J. Marchand}, The algorithm by Schwartz, Sharir and Collins on the piano mover's problem (pp. 49-66); \textit{F. Avnaim}, \textit{J.-D. Boissonnat}, \textit{B. Faverjon}, A practical exact motion planning algorithm for polygonal objects amidst polygonal obstacles (pp. 67-86); \textit{B. Faverjon}, \textit{P. Tournassoud}, Motion planning for manipulators in complex environments (pp. 87-115); \textit{T. Siméon}, Planning collision free trajectories by a configuration space approach (pp. 116-132); \textit{J.-P. Laumond}, \textit{T. Siméon}, \textit{R. Chatila}, \textit{G. Giralt}, Trajectory planning and motion control for mobile robots (pp. 133-149); \textit{P. Tournassoud}, Motion planning for a mobile robot with a kinematic constraint (pp. 150- 171); \textit{O. Faugeras}, \textit{S. Maybank}, Motion from point matches: multiplicity of solutions (pp. 172-193); \textit{J.-P. Merlet}, Singular configurations of parallel manipulators and Grassmann geometry (pp. 194- 212); \textit{H. Crapo}, Applications of geometric homology (pp. 213-224); \textit{M. Schmitt}, Some examples of algorithm analysis in computational geometry by means of mathematical morphological techniques (pp. 225-246); \textit{P. Alevizos}, \textit{J.-D. Boissonnat}, \textit{F. Preparata}, An optimal algorithm for the boundary of a cell in a union of rays (pp. 247-274); \textit{M. Yvinec}, Triangulation in \(2d\) and \(3d\) space (pp. 275-291); \textit{H. Crapo}, \textit{J.-P. Laumond}, Hamiltonian cycles in delaunay complexes (pp. 292-305); \textit{B. Gorla}, \textit{M. Renaud}, Models of robot manipulators (pp. 306-335); \textit{I. Mazon}, Modelling positioning uncertainties (pp. 336-360); \textit{A. Giraud}, \textit{D. Sidobre}, Contact manipulation and geometric reasoning (pp. 361-376); \textit{C. Laugier}, Geometric reasoning in motion planning (pp. 377-413).