Measures of intensity of collision between convex objects and their efficient computation

Abstract

class of measures for quantifying the intensity of collision between two intersecting convex, compact objects is given. A general algorithm is derived for computing these measures when the objects are convex polytopes. This algorithm has a severe time-complexity. Two special measures are singled out and shown to be fast to compute. Hence they are suitable for use in applications such as robot motion planning and VLSI layout.