Apparatus, method and article to facilitate motion planning of an autonomous vehicle in an environment having dynamic objects

A processor-based system to determine paths for vehicles via planning graphs, where each planning graph respectively comprises a plurality of nodes connected by edges, each node which represents, implicitly or explicitly, time and variables that characterize a state of a vehicle that operates in an environment, and each edge representing a transition between a respective pair of nodes, the system comprising:

• at least one processor;
• and
• at least one nontransitory processor-readable medium that stores at least one of processor-executable instructions or data which, when executed by the at least one processor, causes the at least one processor to:
• receive perception information that represents the environment in which the vehicle operates;
• perform a collision assessment on each of two or more of the edges of a planning graph;
• for each of two or more edges of the planning graph, set a probability of collision based at least in part on the collision assessment;
• perform an optimization to identify a path in the resulting planning graph that provides a longest route of travel of the vehicle in two-dimensional or three-dimensional space as specified by the path with a relatively low potential of a collision with one or more dynamic objects in the environment in which the vehicle operates;
• and
• implement a motion plan with the relatively low potential of a collision with one or more dynamic objects in the environment in which the vehicle operates based at least in part on the optimization.