Many scenarios require a robot to be able to explore its 3D environment online without human supervision. This is especially relevant for inspection tasks and search and rescue missions. To solve this high-dimensional path planning problem, sampling-based exploration algorithms have proven successful. However, these do not necessarily scale well to larger environments or spaces with narrow openings. This paper presents a 3D exploration planner based on the principles of Next-Best Views (NBVs). In this approach, a Micro-Aerial Vehicle (MAV) equipped with a limited field-of-view depth sensor randomly samples its configuration space to find promising future viewpoints. In order to obtain high sampling efficiency, our planner maintains and uses a history of visited places, and locally optimizes the robot's orientation with respect to unobserved space. We evaluate our method in several simulated scenarios, and compare it against a state-of-the-art exploration algorithm. The experiments show substantial improvements in exploration time (2× faster), computation time, and path length, and advantages in handling difficult situations such as escaping dead-ends (up to 20× faster). Finally, we validate the on-line capability of our algorithm on a computational constrained real world MAV.• Boosting the RRT planning performance by using a history of exploration potential as seeds. • Increasing the sampling efficiency by maximizing the

Liability of Corporate Groups and Networks Christian A. Witting Excerpt More Information www.cambridge.org © in this web service Cambridge University Press deserving of special treatment because they involve the most important interests protected by lawinterests in the human mind and body. One of the fundamental premises of this book is that the law regarding the insolvent entity problem must give priority to interests in mind and body over commercial and financial interests. The law should strive to protect the integrity of mind and body effectively and, if necessary, subordinate commercial interests to this end. While this book argues for an exception to limited liability in favour of personal injury claims, it accepts that no strong argument can be made for any exception applicable to purely financial claims arising in insolvency. In cases involving purely financial claims, the law of limited liability generally should prevail. The argument in this book is made against a background of legislative and judicial failure in dealing with the insolvent entity problem. The legislation which addresses the insolvent entity problem does so in an unsystematic way, for example facilitating extensions of liability with respect to certain dangerous activities and certain transactions which impede companies' ability to pay their debts. This book argues for a comprehensive statutory exception to limited liability in cases of unsatisfied personal injury claims. Failure in the common law is seen most explicitly in the doctrine of veilpiercing. Veil-piercing has failed because it does not sufficiently respect the fact that each company in a corporate group is a separate legal entity, and because courts have not properly determined the reasons for which this doctrine should be available independent of other common law actions. Indeed, there appears to be little justification for a principle of extended liability directed solely at controlling shareholders. By contrast, the 'equivalence principle' a d h e r e dt oi nt h i sb o o ks t a t e st h a tc o m m o n law doctrines applicable to individuals should be applicable to corporate entities on similar terms, unless there is a good reason for exemption. This book argues that the common law can facilitate extended liability through development of the tort of unlawful means conspiracy. Am o d i fied tort of conspiracy would facilitate extensions of liability horizontally to co-subsidiaries, or to other network participants. Of course, there are policy choices to be made in determining an appropriate liability regime for dealing with the insolvent entity problem. A policy issue which looms large concerns the way in which the legal system in a modern economy ought to balance the interests of big business, on the one hand, and the victims of big business, on the other. In the typical case, the insolvent entity problem impacts disproportionately on the poor and the weak. The failure of legislatures and courts, 2i n t r o d u c t i o n Cambridge University Press 978-1-107-03992-6-Liabilit...

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BEING an action on the case, it has long been supposed that negligence is consummated only upon the occurrence of damage. Physical damage ordinarily occurs where there is some change in the state or structure of a person’s body, or where there is some change in the state or structure of tangible property. The author argues that courts have, in recent wrongful conception and contamination cases, widened the orthodox notion of what constitutes physical damage. The courts have employed an ordinary bystander test in order to determine whether particular failures of care, arising in circumstances of high or unnecessary risk of physical harm, should be treated as if they give rise to physical damage. These are cases of a new form of actionable damage, that is, damage of a socially constructed kind.