I'm working on a path following vehicle. I have a matrix with the coordinates of the path and I have the actual position of the car. And I want to know what is the next point of the path closest to the actual position. How do I do that?

Basically, I want to know what is the point of the path closer to the point of the actual position.

[Walter Roberson]

What if there is an obstacle between the current position and the closest point on the path ?

[Image Analyst]

You blast it out of existence with a Javelin missile.

[Walter Roberson]

I was thinking more of Block Breaker ;-)

Answer 1

[Image Analyst]

Wouldn't you just use the Pythagorean theorem to get the closest distance?

distances = sqrt(pathX - actualX).^2 + (pathY - actualY).^2);
[closestDistance, indexOfClosestPoint] = min(distances);
closestPathX = pathX(indexOfClosestPoint);
closestPathY = pathY(indexOfClosestPoint);