Patent ID: 8498788

Claim:
A method for determining a planned path for a vehicle, the method comprising: defining an outer boundary of a region as a series of interconnected linear segments that are joined at one or more nodes; identifying each concave surface associated with a corresponding concave node, among the nodes, by determining if an interior angle formed by the interconnected linear segments are greater than a threshold angle; establishing at least one subdivision line to divide the region into subdivided areas, where the subdivision line interconnects at or near two nonadjacent ones of the concave nodes associated with identified concave surfaces; determining a direction of orientation of rows for a planned path of the vehicle within each subdivided area as a predefined multiple of an interior angle associated with at least one of the concave nodes that are not interconnected by the subdivision line; and interconnecting the rows within different subdivided areas and between subdivided areas to each other by planned interconnection paths between terminations within each subdivided area to yield the planned path for the vehicle, wherein the defining, identifying, establishing, determining and interconnecting is performed by a data processing system.