Discrete Dubins Paths

A Dubins path is a shortest path with bounded curvature. The seminal result in nonholonomic motion planning is that (in the absence of obstacles) a Dubins path consists either from a circular arc followed by a segment followed by another arc, or from three circular arcs [Dubins, 1957]. Dubins original proof uses advanced calculus; later, Dubins result was reproved using control theory techniques [Reeds and Shepp, 1990], [Sussmann and Tang, 1991], [Boissonnat, Cérézo, and Leblond, 1994]. We introduce and study a discrete analogue of curvature-constrained motion. We show that shortest “bounded-curvature” polygonal paths have the same structure as Dubins paths. The properties of Dubins paths follow from our results as a limiting case—this gives a new, “discrete” proof of Dubins result.