Contents Online
Homology, Homotopy and Applications
Volume 14 (2012)
Number 1
Computing braid groups of graphs with applications to robot motion planning
Pages: 159 – 180
DOI: https://dx.doi.org/10.4310/HHA.2012.v14.n1.a8
Author
Abstract
An algorithm is designed to write down presentations of graph braid groups. Generators are represented in terms of actual motions of robots moving without collisions on a given connected graph. A key ingredient is a new motion planning algorithm whose complexity is linear in the number of edges and is 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.
Keywords
graph, braid group, configuration space, fundamental group, homotopy type, deformation retraction, collision free motion, planning algorithm, complexity, robotics
2010 Mathematics Subject Classification
05C25, 20F36, 57M05
Published 13 July 2012