A "Piano Movers" Problem Reformulated

It has long been known that cylindrical algebraic decompositions (CADs) can in theory be used for robot motion planning. However, in practice even the simplest examples can be too complicated to tackle. We consider in detail a "Piano Mover's Problem" which considers moving an infinitesimally thin piano (or ladder) through a right-angled corridor. Producing a CAD for the original formulation of this problem is still infeasible after 25 years of improvements in both CAD theory and computer hardware. We review some alternative formulations in the literature which use differing levels of geometric analysis before input to a CAD algorithm. Simpler formulations allow CAD to easily address the question of the existence of a path. We provide a new formulation for which both a CAD can be constructed and from which an actual path could be determined if one exists, and analyse the CADs produced using this approach for variations of the problem. This emphasises the importance of the precise formulation of such problems for CAD. We analyse the formulations and their CADs considering a variety of heuristics and general criteria, leading to conclusions about tackling other problems of this form.Comment: 8 pages. Copyright IEEE 201

Truth table invariant cylindrical algebraic decomposition

When using cylindrical algebraic decomposition (CAD) to solve a problem with respect to a set of polynomials, it is likely not the signs of those polynomials that are of paramount importance but rather the truth values of certain quantifier free formulae involving them. This observation motivates our article and definition of a Truth Table Invariant CAD (TTICAD). In ISSAC 2013 the current authors presented an algorithm that can efficiently and directly construct a TTICAD for a list of formulae in which each has an equational constraint. This was achieved by generalising McCallum's theory of reduced projection operators. In this paper we present an extended version of our theory which can be applied to an arbitrary list of formulae, achieving savings if at least one has an equational constraint. We also explain how the theory of reduced projection operators can allow for further improvements to the lifting phase of CAD algorithms, even in the context of a single equational constraint. The algorithm is implemented fully in Maple and we present both promising results from experimentation and a complexity analysis showing the benefits of our contributions.Comment: 40 page

Problem formulation for truth-table invariant cylindrical algebraic decomposition by incremental triangular decomposition

Cylindrical algebraic decompositions (CADs) are a key tool for solving problems in real algebraic geometry and beyond. We recently presented a new CAD algorithm combining two advances: truth-table invariance, making the CAD invariant with respect to the truth of logical formulae rather than the signs of polynomials; and CAD construction by regular chains technology, where first a complex decomposition is constructed by refining a tree incrementally by constraint. We here consider how best to formulate problems for input to this algorithm. We focus on a choice (not relevant for other CAD algorithms) about the order in which constraints are presented. We develop new heuristics to help make this choice and thus allow the best use of the algorithm in practice. We also consider other choices of problem formulation for CAD, as discussed in CICM 2013, revisiting these in the context of the new algorithm

Cylindrical algebraic decomposition with equational constraints

Cylindrical Algebraic Decomposition (CAD) has long been one of the most important algorithms within Symbolic Computation, as a tool to perform quantifier elimination in first order logic over the reals. More recently it is finding prominence in the Satisfiability Checking community as a tool to identify satisfying solutions of problems in nonlinear real arithmetic. The original algorithm produces decompositions according to the signs of polynomials, when what is usually required is a decomposition according to the truth of a formula containing those polynomials. One approach to achieve that coarser (but hopefully cheaper) decomposition is to reduce the polynomials identified in the CAD to reflect a logical structure which reduces the solution space dimension: the presence of Equational Constraints (ECs). This paper may act as a tutorial for the use of CAD with ECs: we describe all necessary background and the current state of the art. In particular, we present recent work on how McCallum's theory of reduced projection may be leveraged to make further savings in the lifting phase: both to the polynomials we lift with and the cells lifted over. We give a new complexity analysis to demonstrate that the double exponent in the worst case complexity bound for CAD reduces in line with the number of ECs. We show that the reduction can apply to both the number of polynomials produced and their degree.Comment: Accepted into the Journal of Symbolic Computation. arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:1501.0446

A “piano movers” problem reformulated

Abstract-It has long been known that cylindrical algebraic decompositions (CADs) can in theory be used for robot motion planning. However, in practice even the simplest examples can be too complicated to tackle. We consider in detail a "Piano Mover's Problem" which considers moving an infinitesimally thin piano (or ladder) through a right-angled corridor. Producing a CAD for the original formulation of this problem is still infeasible after 25 years of improvements in both CAD theory and computer hardware. We review some alternative formulations in the literature which use differing levels of geometric analysis before input to a CAD algorithm. Simpler formulations allow CAD to easily address the question of the existence of a path. We provide a new formulation for which both a CAD can be constructed and from which an actual path could be determined if one exists, and analyse the CADs produced using this approach for variations of the problem. This emphasises the importance of the precise formulation of such problems for CAD. We analyse the formulations and their CADs considering a variety of heuristics and general criteria, leading to conclusions about tackling other problems of this form