Book Image

Everyday Data Structures

By : William Smith
Book Image

Everyday Data Structures

By: William Smith

Overview of this book

Explore a new world of data structures and their applications easily with this data structures book. Written by software expert William Smith, you?ll learn how to master basic and advanced data structure concepts. ? Fully understand data structures using Java, C and other common languages ? Work through practical examples and learn real-world applications ? Get to grips with data structure problem solving using case studies
Table of Contents (20 chapters)
Everyday Data Structures
Credits
About the Author
About the Reviewer
www.PacktPub.com
Customer Feedback
Preface
Free Chapter
1
Data Types: Foundational Structures

Case study: motion planning algorithm


Business problem: An industrial engineer programs a robotic manufacturing device to insert bolts in sequential receptacles on a widget, then attach and tighten nuts onto each bolt. The robot carriers a different tool for each operation, and can switch between them automatically on command. However, the process of switching between tools adds considerable time to the overall workflow, especially when the tool is switched back and forth over each bolt. This has been identified as a source of inefficiency, and the engineer wants to improve the speed of the process, reducing the overall time required to complete each unit.

In order to eliminate the latency introduced by switching between tools repeatedly, the engineer decides to program the robot to install all of the bolts first, and then switch tools before returning and installing all of the nuts. To further improve performance, he does not want the robot to reset to it's original starting position, but...