Definition
Plain language
The software that figures out a collision-free path for a robot to move from where it is to where it wants to be.
As stated in the literature
A robotics component that computes feasible trajectories subject to reachability and collision-avoidance constraints; it refuses goals inside its collision buffer, a failure mode ASPIRE's execution trace localizes and repairs via multi-angle approach sampling.
Also called: motion planning
Why it matters: Without it a robot would move blindly and crash into things, so it's what makes safe, reliable physical action possible.
For example, before a robot arm reaches for a mug behind a bottle, the motion planner charts a path that swings around the bottle instead of knocking it over.
Heard on the show
“… trick that a bottle tips over unless you grab it along its long axis, the workaround when the motion planner keeps refusing a path — all of it evaporates the second the task ends. …”Episode 194 — How a Robot Builds a Debugging Notebook It Can Read, Edit, and Hand to Another Robot