  Configuration spaces of distinct labeled points on the plane are of practical
relevance in designing safe control schemes for Automated Guided Vehicles
(robots) in industrial settings. In this announcement, we consider the problem
of the construction and classification of configuration spaces for graphs.
Topological data associated to these spaces (eg, dimension, braid groups)
provide an effective measure of the complexity of the control problem. The
spaces are themselves topologically interesting objects: we show that they are
$K(\pi_1,1)$ spaces whose homological dimension is bounded by the number of
essential vertices. Hence, the braid groups are torsion-free.
