Weakly collision-free paths for continuous humanoid footstep planning

Abstract

In this paper we demonstrate an original equivalence between footstep planning problems, where discrete sequences of steps are searched for, and the more classical problem of motion planning for a 2D rigid shape, where a continuous collision-free path has to be found. This equivalence enables a lot of classical motion planning techniques (such as PRM, RRT, etc.) to be applied almost effortlessly to the specific problem of footstep planning for a humanoid robot.