Steven LaValle

Ph.D. University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1995

Research Statement

Professor LaValle is interested primarily in the design of planning algorithms. His focus is mainly on problems that involve continuous spaces, complicated geometric constraints, differential constraints, and/or sensing uncertainties. Such problems are fundamental in areas such as robotics, computer graphics, architectural design, and computational biology. The planning techniques developed in his research group build on literature from robotics, algorithms, computational geometry, artificial intelligence and control theory.

In addition to algorithm design, Professor LaValle is interested both in theoretical analysis and practical implementation issues. To stimulate the use of planning algorithms in research, education, and industry, he developed the Motion Strategy Library (MSL) together with his students.