Reading assignment 1

First, read the first three pages of each of the following five papers, and write a 3 sentence summary of the main result for each.

Then, pick one paper to read in depth: read at least the first 10 pages in detail and quickly read the remainder. For this paper,

1. Write a one-paragraph answer to each of the following questions. What is the problem the paper tries to solve? What’s the main contribution of the paper? What else has been done by other authors in this area? What are limitations of the approach in this paper?
2. Prepare to lead a discussion on the paper by writing a list of 5 questions that you might ask during the discussion, assuming the other participants have read the paper.

Here are the papers:

1. Multi-robot planning. Finding a Needle in an Exponential Haystack: Discrete RRT for Exploration of Implicit Roadmaps in Multi-robot Motion Planning
2. Planning using optimization. CHOMP: Covariant Hamiltonian Optimization for Motion Planning
3. Navigation fields. Directing Crowd Simulations Using Navigation Fields
4. Continuous cost representation. Field D*
5. Time optimal motion. Time optimal trajectories for bounded velocity differential drive vehicles