A Homotopy-like Class Invariant for Sub-manifolds of Punctured Euclidean   Spaces
  We consider the $D$-dimensional Euclidean space, $\mathbb{R}^D$, with certain $(D-N)$-dimensional compact, closed and orientable sub-manifolds (which we call \emph{singularity manifolds} and represent by $\widetilde{\mathcal{S}}$) removed from it. We define and investigate the problem of finding a homotopy-like class invariant ($\chi$-homotopy) for certain $(N-1)$-dimensional compact, closed and orientable sub-manifolds (which we call \emph{candidate manifolds} and represent by $\omega$) of $\mathbb{R}^D \setminus \widetilde{\mathcal{S}}$, with special emphasis on computational aspects of the problem. We determine a differential $(N-1)$-form, $\psi_{\widetilde{\mathcal{S}}}$, such that $\chi_{\widetilde{\mathcal{S}}}(\omega) = \int_\omega \psi_{\widetilde{\mathcal{S}}}$ is a class invariant for such candidate manifolds. We show that the formula agrees with formulae from Cauchy integral theorem and Residue theorem of complex analysis (when $D=2,N=2$), Biot-Savart law and Ampere's law of theory of electromagnetism (when $D=3,N=2$), and the Gauss divergence theorem (when $D=3,N=3$), and discover that the underlying equivalence relation suggested by each of these well-known theorems is the $\chi$-homotopy of sub-manifolds of these low dimensional punctured Euclidean spaces. We describe numerical techniques for computing $\psi_{\widetilde{\mathcal{S}}}$ and its integral on $\omega$, and give numerical validations of the proposed theory for a problem in a 5-dimensional Euclidean space. We also discuss a specific application from \emph{robot path planning problem}, when N=2, and describe a method for computing least cost paths with homotopy class constraints using \emph{graph search techniques}. 
Subhrajit Bhattacharya, Maxim Likhachev, Vijay Kumar
math.DG math.AT math.GT