Geodesic complexity of motion planning (Q2240091)

In this paper, the geodesic complexity of a metric space is introduced, using the topological complexity of a topological space. It is pointed out that both of them are numerical invariants. However, the topological complexity only depends on the homotopy type, while the geodesic complexity is an invariant under isometries. Also, it is proved that in some cases they coincide but tools are developed to distinguish the two in a range of examples. Finally, the total cut locus are studied.