# Lesson 34 — Optimal Path Planning

<p class="block-synopsis">The threat picture is finished; the aircraft still has to cross it. Lay a graph over the map, price every leg by its length and its exposure, and Dijkstra returns the cheapest route exactly. Written as r = −ln(1−p) = Σλℓ, exposure adds the way Dijkstra adds, so the minimum-cost route is the maximum-survival route: make risk additive and the safest route is just the shortest path.</p>

<div class="block-toc">
  <a class="bt-card bt-reading" href="L34_OptimalPathPlanning_Reading.html">
    <span class="bt-kind">Reading</span>
    <h4>Optimal Path Planning</h4>
    <p>Routes as shortest paths, Dijkstra by hand and in MATLAB, why exposure is −ln(1−p), the weight sweep and the fuel limit, and why aspect makes the graph directed.</p>
  </a>
  <a class="bt-card bt-flashcards" href="L34_Flashcards.html">
    <span class="bt-kind">Flashcards</span>
    <h4>Review deck</h4>
    <p>Key terms and relations from the lesson, in a self-test deck.</p>
  </a>
  <a class="bt-card bt-preflight" href="L34_Preflight.html">
    <span class="bt-kind">Pre-flight</span>
    <h4>Pre-flight quiz</h4>
    <p>Five questions to work before class — anyone can be called to the board.</p>
  </a>
  <a class="bt-card bt-slides" href="../decks/L34_OptimalPathPlanning.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">
    <span class="bt-kind">Slides</span>
    <h4>Lesson slides</h4>
    <p>The deck we work through in class — an HTML deck you can annotate in the browser, with a print view for saving a PDF.</p>
  </a>
  <a class="bt-card bt-demo" href="L34_RoutePlanner_Demo.html">
    <span class="bt-kind">Demo</span>
    <h4>Route Planner</h4>
    <p>Drag five SAM sites around a 400 × 300 km map, slide the weight from shortest to safest, sweep the Pareto front, and watch a fuel limit — and the aircraft's aspect — pick the route.</p>
  </a>
</div>
