In this paper we study symmetric motion planning algorithms, i.e. such that the motion from one state A to another B, prescribed by the algorithm, is the time reverse of the motion from B to A. We experiment with several different notions of topological complexity of such algorithms and compare them with each other and with the usual (non-symmetric) concept of topological complexity. Using equivariant cohomology and the theory of Schwarz genus we obtain cohomological lower bounds for symmetric topological complexity. One of our main results states that in the case of aspherical manifolds the complexity of symmetric motion planning algorithms with fixed midpoint map exceeds twice the cup-length.
We introduce a new concept, the sectional category weight of a cohomology class, which generalises the notion of category weight developed earlier by E. Fadell and S. Husseini. We apply this notion to study the symmetric topological complexity of aspherical manifolds.
This paper concerns the study of the homotopy type of the ordered configuration space for manifolds with boundary and as an application we will study the collision free motion planning problem on manifolds with boundary.
We compute the higher topological complexity of ordered configuration spaces of orientable surfaces, thus extending Cohen-Farber's description of the ordinary topological complexity of those spaces.
We provide explicit motion planners for Euiclidean configuration spaces. This allows us to recover some known values of the topological complexity and the Lusternik-Schinirelman category of these spaces.
In terms of Rudyak's generalization of Farber's topological complexity of the path motion planning problem in robotics, we give a complete description of the topological instabilities in any sequential motion planning algorithm for a system consisting of non-colliding autonomous entities performing tasks in space whilst avoiding collisions with several moving obstacles. The Isotopy Extension Theorem from manifold topology implies, somewhat surprisingly, that the complexity of this problem coincides with the complexity of the corresponding problem in which the obstacles are stationary.
In robotics, a topological theory of motion planning was initiated by M. Farber. The multitasking motion planning problem is new and its theoretical part via topological complexity has hardly been developed, but the concrete implementations are still non-existent, and in fact this work takes the first step in this last direction (producing explicit algorithms.) We present optimal motion planning algorithms which can be used in designing practical systems controlling objects moving in Euclidean space without collisions between them and avoiding obstacles. Furthermore, we present the multitaskin…
In this paper we introduce and study a new concept of parametrised topological complexity, a topological invariant motivated by the motion planning problem of robotics. In the parametrised setting, a motion planning algorithm has high degree of universality and flexibility, it can function under a variety of external conditions (such as positions of the obstacles etc). We explicitly compute the parameterised topological complexity of obstacle-avoiding collision-free motion of many particles (robots) in 3-dimensional space. Our results show that the parameterised topological complexity can be s…
We study higher analogues of effective and effectual topological complexity of spaces equipped with a group action. These are $G$-homotopy invariant and are motivated by the (higher) motion planning problem of $G$-spaces for which their group action is thought of as an external system assisting the motion planning. Related to this interpretation we define what we call orbital topological complexity, which is also a $G$-homotopy invariant that provides an upper bound for the topological complexity of the quotient space by the group action. We apply these concepts to actions of the group of orde…
We define a simpler notion of symmetric topological complexity more ad hoc to the motion planning problem which was the original motivation for the definition of topological complexity. This is a homotopy invariant that we call bidirectional topological complexity. We prove properties of this invariant and show specific instances for which the symmetrized topological complexity can be relaxed to the bidirectional setting. This approach allows us to estimate higher values of symmetrized topological complexities.
In this paper, we introduce the notion of transversal topological complexity (TTC) for a smooth manifold $X$ with respect to a submanifold of codimension 1 together with basic results about this numerical invariant. In addition, we present several examples of explicit transversal algorithms.
In this short note we observe that the higher topological complexity of an iterated connected sum of real projective spaces is maximal possible. Unlike the case of regular TC, the result is accessible through easy mod 2 zero-divisor cup-length considerations.
The paper surveys topological problems relevant to the motion planning problem of robotics and includes some new results and constructions. First we analyse the notion of topological complexity of configuration spaces which is responsible for discontinuities in algorithms for robot navigation. Then we present explicit motion planning algorithms for coordinated collision free control of many particles moving in Euclidean spaces or on graphs. These algorithms are optimal in the sense that they have minimal number of regions of continuity. Moreover, we describe in full detail the topology of conf…
In this paper we develop theory of sequential parametrized motion planning which generalises the approach of parametrized motion planning, which was introduced recently in [3]. A sequential parametrized motion planning algorithm produced a motion of the system which is required to visit a prescribed sequence of states, in certain order, at specified moments of time. The sequential parametrized algorithms are universal as the external conditions are not fixed in advance but rather constitute part of the input of the algorithm. The second part of this article consists of a detailed analysis of t…
Farber and Rudyak introduced topological complexity $\mathbf{TC}(X)$ of motion planning and its higher analogs $\mathbf{TC}_n(X)$ to measure the complexity of assigning paths to point tuples. Motivated by motion planning where a robotic system starts at the home configuration and possibly comes back after passing through a list of locations, we define three other classes of topological complexities $\mathbf{LTC}_n(X)$, $\mathbf{ltc}_n(X)$ and $\mathbf{tc}_n(X)$. We will compare these notions and compute the latter for some familiar classes of spaces.
Using the notion of contiguity of simplicial maps, we adapt Farber's topological complexity to the realm of simplicial complexes. We show that, for a finite simplicial complex $K$, our discretized concept recovers the topological complexity of the realization $\|K\|$. Our approach is well suited for designing and implementing algorithms that search for optimal motion planners for autonomous systems in real-life applications.
We design an algorithm writing down presentations of graph braid groups. Generators are represented in terms of actual motions of robots moving without collisions on a given graph. A key ingredient is a new motion planning algorithm whose complexity is linear in the number of edges and quadratic in the number of robots. The computing algorithm implies that 2-point braid groups of all light planar graphs have presentations where all relators are commutators.
We consider the problem of robot motion planning in an oriented Riemannian manifold as a topological motion planning problem in its oriented frame bundle. For this purpose, we study the topological complexity of oriented frame bundles, derive an upper bound for this invariant and certain lower bounds from cup length computations. In particular, we show that for large classes of oriented manifolds, e.g. for spin manifolds, the topological complexity of the oriented frame bundle is bounded from below by the dimension of the base manifold.
Queen Mary University of London（伦敦玛丽女王大学）；The University of Chicago（芝加哥大学）
In this paper we study paramertized motion planning algorithms which provide universal and flexible solutions to diverse motion planning problems. Such algorithms are intended to function under a variety of external conditions which are viewed as parameters and serve as part of the input of the algorithm. Continuing a recent paper, we study further the concept of parametrized topological complexity. We analyse in full detail the problem of controlling a swarm of robots in the presence of multiple obstacles in Euclidean space which served for us a natural motivating example. We present an expli…
Louisiana State University（路易斯安那州立大学）；Queen Mary University of London（伦敦大学玛丽皇后学院）；The University of Chicago（芝加哥大学）
Parametrized motion planning algorithms have high degrees of universality and flexibility, as they are designed to work under a variety of external conditions, which are viewed as parameters and form part of the input of the underlying motion planning problem. In this paper, we analyze the parameterized motion planning problem for the motion of many distinct points in the plane, moving without collision and avoiding multiple distinct obstacles with a priori unknown positions. This complements our prior work [arXiv:2009.06023], where parameterized motion planning algorithms were introduced, and…
In this paper we study a notion of topological complexity for the motion planning problem. The topological complexity is a number which measures discontinuity of the process of motion planning in the configuration space X. More precisely, it is the minimal number k such that there are k different motion planning rules, each defined on an open subset of XxX, so that each rule is continuous in the source and target configurations. We use methods of algebraic topology (the Lusternik - Schnirelman theory) to study the topological complexity . We give an upper bound (in terms of the dimension of th…
We introduce a variant of Farber's topological complexity, defined for smooth compact orientable Riemannian manifolds, which takes into account only motion planners with the lowest possible "average length" of the output paths. We prove that it never differs from topological complexity by more than $1$, thus showing that the latter invariant addresses the problem of the existence of motion planners which are "efficient".
