High speed robot control and obstacle avoidance using dynamic potential functions

Time-optimal control of robot motion for dynamically decoupled manipulators is described in terms of potential functions. Avoidance of moving obstacles is incorporated via protective potential functions. An energy interpretation of the potential functions leads to rules for construction of avoidance functions and logical operations among them. Simple expressions for combining obstacle fields with an obstacle-free time-optimal solution result in the minimum safe influence of obstacles. Simulation results are given demonstrating high-speed target interception in the presence of obstacles.