Computing the Configuration Space on Reconfiguration Mesh Multiprocessors

Configuration space computation is a transformation process that reduces a robot to a single reference point by expanding obstacles on the image plane. The obstacles can be expanded by inverting the robot along a reference point and then slide this reference point along their borders. The area covered by the union of inverted robot during the sliding along with the obstacles defines the configuration space of obstacles. This approach reduces a complex problem into a simple one. In this paper, we present a parallel algorithm for computing the configuration space obstacles by using reconfigurable mesh multiprocessors. The reconfigurable mesh multiprocessor system is a multiprocessor model with flexible bus connection capabilities. The digitized images of the obstacles and the robot are stored in an image plane. The algorithm takes O(1) time and