engineering

Jean-Claude Latombe

Jean-Claude Latombe is a engineering topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Jean-Claude Latombe rather than just read about it. In short: Jean-Claude Latombe (born May 14, 1947) is a French-American roboticist and the Kumagai Professor Emeritus in the School of Engineering at Stanford University. Latombe is a researcher in robot motion planning, and has authored one of the most highly cited books in the field.

Key takeaways

Jean-Claude Latombe belongs to engineering; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Jean-Claude Latombe to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Jean-Claude Latombe from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Jean-Claude Latombe (born May 14, 1947) is a French-American roboticist and the Kumagai Professor Emeritus in the School of Engineering at Stanford University. Latombe is a researcher in robot motion planning, and has authored one of the most highly cited books in the field.

Biography Latombe received his dual-Engineering Degree in electrical engineering and computer science from the National Polytechnic Institute of Grenoble (now Grenoble Institute of Technology) in 1969 and 1970, respectively, and a M.S. in electrical engineering in 1972, with the thesis Design of a Computer-Aided Instruction System in Electrical Engineering. In 1977, Latombe received a Ph.D. in computer science from the University of Grenoble with a thesis Artificial Intelligence for Design Automation. He joined the faculty of INPG in 1980, and left in 1984 to join the Industry and Technology for Machine Intelligence (ITMI), a company he co-founded in 1982. In 1987, Latombe joined Stanford University as an associate professor, and has since been professor (1992), chairman (1997–2000), and Kumagai Professor (2001–present) in the Department of Computer Science. Latombe was elected a Fellow of the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence in 1993.

Work Latombe is an important figure in robotic motion planning. After Mark Overmars published the Probabilistic Roadmap Method (PRM) in 1992, Latombe and Lydia Kavraki independently developed the algorithm in 1994, and their joint paper with Overmars, Probabilistic roadmaps for path planning in high-dimensional configuration spaces, is considered one of the most influential studies in motion planning, and has been widely cited (more than 1000 times as of 2008). More recently, Latombe has applied his knowledge in robotics to structural biology problems, and developed the PRM-based Stochastic Roadmap Simulation (SRS) to efficiently generate and analyze large collections of protein trajectories.

References

External links Stanford University Robotics: Jean-Claude Latombe webpage NDSU.edu: Mathematics Genealogy Project

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Jean-Claude Latombe

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Jean-Claude Latombe claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In engineering, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Jean-Claude Latombe before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Jean-Claude Latombe ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Jean-Claude Latombe

In research: Jean-Claude Latombe appears in engineering research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Jean-Claude Latombe in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Jean-Claude Latombe is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1947 births, 20th-century American engineers, 20th-century French scientists, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Jean-Claude Latombe outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Jean-Claude Latombe in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Jean-Claude Latombe means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Jean-Claude Latombe out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Jean-Claude Latombe in simple terms?

Why does Jean-Claude Latombe matter?

Because it connects several engineering ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Jean-Claude Latombe?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Jean-Claude Latombe.