Collision Avoidance and Handling for a Mobile Manipulator ∗

In general service robots move autonomously in partially known environments. This paper proposes a collision avoidance and collision handling scheme to move through such working areas. Both schemes are implemented in a single paradigm: artificial and measured forces are combined, resulting in force/torque vectors. The force/torque vectors are superimposed and the robot’s joint velocities are determined. We present results from our experimental system consisting of a 8 degrees of freedom manipulator arm mounted on a mobile platform. In the illustrated example, a human enforces collisions by touching the robot. The robot evades the human’s touch without robot self-collisions.