Path Planning for Dexterous Mobility

In order to overcome a large variety of run-time constraints, robots are being designed to be more resourceful by incorporating more sensory and motor options for any given task. The added flexibility provides a basis for dexterous problem solving, but challenges planners by increasing the complexity of search. Moreover, the cost of functionally equivalent options can vary dramatically. In the worst case, naive approaches to planning avoid expensive actions until inexpensive options are explored exhaustively leading to poor overall search performance. We present a dexterous robot that introduces multiple types of locomotor actions with significant differences in cost and situational value and apply standard search techniques to demonstrate the additional challenges that arise in the context of dexterous mobility. Results highlight incentives, opportunities, and impact for overcoming these challenges. Additionally, we present a prototype for a path planner that uses environmental features to define an efficient set of subgoals for dexterous motion planning.