This is called a boustrophedon decomposition[1] (the name comes from the movement an ox makes when plowing a field). It's used for minesweeping robots among oth

This is called a boustrophedon decomposition[1] (the name comes from the movement an ox makes when plowing a field). It's used for minesweeping robots among other things. Constructing the decomposition simultaneously covers the space being explored, so a robot can explore and mow grass at the same time. Applied as a coverage algorithm, it's much more efficient than a random walk. The robot is usually modelled as having a non-zero footprint since coverage is often a goal, but a radius of zero can be used for exploration. To explore a space with minimum obstacle radius R and robot radius r, each sweep can be 2(R+r) units wide. [1] http://planning.cs.uiuc.edu/node352.html http://planning.cs.uiuc.edu/node352.html