Baruch Schieber

IBM Research - Thomas J. Watson Research Center, IBM (United States)

Papers

Total Citations

268

H-Index

About

Baruch Schieber is a prominent computer scientist whose research spans algorithmic robotics, combinatorial optimization, and computational geometry. He is perhaps best known for his foundational contributions to online navigation algorithms, particularly the challenge of guiding autonomous robots through environments with unknown obstacles. His landmark work on "Navigating in Unfamiliar Geometric Terrain," published in both 1991 and 1997 and accumulating nearly 200 combined citations, established rigorous theoretical frameworks for robot path planning when obstacle positions are revealed only during traversal — a problem with deep practical implications for autonomous systems. Schieber further advanced the field of geometric optimization through his work on the Angular-Metric Traveling Salesman Problem (2000, 72 citations), where he proved the NP-hardness of minimizing directional changes in robotic tours through Euclidean space, directly addressing efficiency constraints in real-world robotic motion. This result connected classical combinatorial optimization with practical robotics engineering in a meaningful way. Across his career, Schieber has demonstrated a distinctive ability to bridge theoretical computer science and applied algorithmic challenges, making his work essential reading for researchers in computational geometry, robotics, and algorithm design.