Higher topological complexity of subcomplexes of products of spheres and related polyhedral product spaces

Abstract

We construct "higher" motion planners for automated systems whose spaces of states are homotopy equivalent to a polyhedral product space $Z(K,\{(S^{k_i},\star)\})$, e.g. robot arms with restrictions on the possible combinations of simultaneously moving nodes. Our construction is shown to be optimal by explicit cohomology calculations. The higher topological complexity of other families of polyhedral product spaces is also determined.