Patent ID: 7110881

Claim:
A method for planning a path of a vehicle, the method comprising: establishing a perimeter path plan of the vehicle including a defined perimeter, the perimeter path plan comprising a least one segment; establishing a region-filling path plan of the vehicle within the defined perimeter, the region-filling path plan comprising a series of interconnected segments; establishing a point-to-point path plan of the vehicle including at least one of the segments of at least one of the region-filling path plan and the perimeter path plan; and forming a preferential composite path plan comprising a list or ordered assembly of the segments by estimating candidate path distances of corresponding candidate composite paths and selecting a shortest candidate path as the preferential composite path based on the established perimeter path plan, the region-filling plan, and the point-to-point path plan, each segment being curved or straight and defined by a start point, an end point, and an arc radius.