Suppose that
. One of the simplest ways conceptually to
obtain a dense sequence is to pick points at random. Suppose
is an interval of length
. If
samples are
chosen independently at random,5.3 the
probability that none of them falls into
is
. As
approaches infinity, this probability converges to zero. This means
that the probability that any nonzero-length interval in
contains no points converges to zero. One small technicality exists.
The infinite sequence of independently, randomly chosen points is only
dense with probability one, which is not the same as being
guaranteed. This is one of the strange outcomes of dealing with
uncountably infinite sets in probability theory. For example, if a
number between
is chosen at random, the probably that
is chosen is zero; however, it is still possible. (The probability is
just the Lebesgue measure, which is zero for a set of measure zero.)
For motion planning purposes, this technicality has no practical
implications; however, if
is not very large, then it might be
frustrating to obtain only probabilistic assurances, as opposed to
absolute guarantees of coverage. The next sequence is guaranteed to
be dense because it is deterministic.
Steven M LaValle 2020-08-14