Papers
20
Total Citations
1,085
H-Index
13
About
Patrick Xavier is a robotics researcher whose career has been defined by foundational contributions to motion planning, particularly in the domain of kinodynamic planning — the challenge of computing optimal robot trajectories subject to simultaneous kinematic and dynamic constraints. His landmark 1993 paper, "Kinodynamic Motion Planning," has accumulated 456 citations and remains a cornerstone reference in the field, while his earlier 1988 complexity analysis laid the theoretical groundwork that shaped subsequent research directions. Xavier has been particularly prolific in developing provably good approximation algorithms for optimal trajectory planning, producing multiple influential works throughout the 1990s that addressed robots with decoupled dynamics bounds, Cartesian robots, and open-chain manipulators. His 2002 work on swept-volume distance for collision detection (62 citations) broadened his contributions to practical robotics safety systems, and his 2007 Lazy Reconfiguration Forest algorithm extended rapidly-exploring random trees to handle dynamic, multi-task environments. Further demonstrating his range, Xavier has explored tethered robot path planning and model-free biological learning in mobile robots. Collectively, his body of work, spanning theoretical complexity analysis to practical algorithmic implementation, has earned over 960 citations, cementing his influence across the robotics planning community.
Research Focus
Key Achievements
Top Papers
- 1Kinodynamic motion planning456 citations · 1993
- 2On the complexity of kinodynamic planning176 citations · 1988
- 3Fast swept-volume distance for robust collision detection62 citations · 2002
- 4
- 5
- 6A provably good approximation algorithm for optimal-time trajectory planning43 citations · 2003
- 7
- 8Shortest path planning for a tethered robot or an anchored cable38 citations · 2003
- 9Model-Free Learning and Control in a Mobile Robot32 citations · 2009
- 10