Navigation & SLAM

Velocity Obstacles

A velocity obstacle is the set of velocities that would cause a moving agent to collide with a moving obstacle at some future time, assuming the obstacle maintains its current velocity; selecting velocities outside this set guarantees collision-free motion. Introduced by Fiorini and Shiller in 1998, the concept was extended to reciprocal velocity obstacles (RVO) and ORCA for decentralized collision avoidance among many agents.

Why it matters for physical AI

Mobile robots and fleets operating around people need reactive, provable collision avoidance at high control rates, and velocity-obstacle methods remain the workhorse for multi-robot and crowd navigation.