Navigation & SLAM

Collision Checking

Collision checking is the geometric computation that determines whether a robot configuration or motion segment intersects obstacles or the robot's own body, typically using libraries like FCL with broad-phase bounding-volume hierarchies and narrow-phase algorithms such as GJK. Sampling-based motion planners spend the majority of their runtime on collision checks, motivating GPU-parallel checkers such as cuRobo's and learned collision approximators. Continuous checking validates swept motions between sampled states.

Why it matters for physical AI

Fast collision checking is the computational bottleneck of motion planning, and GPU-accelerated or learned checkers enable the real-time replanning rates that reactive manipulation around humans demands.