Work

Continuous-Time Line-of-Sight Constrained Trajectory Planning for 6-Degree of Freedom Systems

Year: 2025

Type: article

Abstract: Perception algorithms are ubiquitous in modern autonomy stacks, providing necessary environmental information to operate in the real world. Many of these algorithms depend on the visibility of keypoints, which must remain within the robot's line-of-sight (LoS) for reliable operation. This letter tackles the challenge of maintaining LoS on such keypoints during robot movement. We propose a novel method that addresses these issues by ensuring applicability to various sensor footprints, adaptability to arbitrary nonlinear system dynamics, and constant enforcement of LoS throughout the robot's path. Our experiments show that the proposed approach achieves significantly reduced LoS violation and runtime compared to existing state-of-the-art methods in several representative and challenging scenarios.

Source: IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters

DOI: 10.1109/lra.2025.3545299

Authors: Christopher R. Hayner, John M. Carson III, Behçet Açkmeşe, Karen Leung

Institutions: University of Washington, Johnson Space Center

Language: English

Topic: Robotic Path Planning Algorithms

Subfield: Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition

Field: Computer Science

Domain: Physical Sciences

Open Access status: green

Funders: National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Office of Naval Research

Awards: G4504108201, G4993194812, G8876996369