A configuration space is used in robotics to help navigate. It is a change of representation which 'grows' objects in the space and treats the robot as a centre point. The objcet growth is chosen so that of the pathis chosen wherby the centre point. avoids the grown objects, then the full robot, with all of its protuberances, will not bump into the actual objects.
Defined on page 348
Used on pages 348, 349, 352, 365, 367