A Covering Projection for Robot Navigation under Strong anisotropy

Path planning can be subject to different types of optimization. Some years ago a German researcher, U. Leuthäusser, proposed a new variational method for reducing most types of optimization criteria to one and the same: minimization of path length. This can be done by altering the Riemannian metric of the domain, so that optimal paths (with respect to whatever criterion) are simply seen as shortest. This method offers an extra feature, which has not been exploited so far: it admits direction–dependent criteria.