Efficient Local Planning using Connection Collision Query

We introduce a novel proximity query, called connection collision query (CCQ), and use it for efficient and exact local planning in sampling-based motion planners. Given two collision-free configurations, CCQ checks whether these configurations can be connected by a given continuous path that either lies completely in the free space or penetrates any obstacle by at most ε , a given threshold. Our approach is general, robust, and can handle different continuous path formulations. We have integrated the CCQ algorithm with sampling-based motion planners and can perform reliable local planning queries with little performance degradation, as compared to prior methods. Moreover, the CCQ-based exact local planner is about an order of magnitude faster than prior exact local planning algorithms.