Coordinated Motion Planning Based on Virtual Workspace Constraints for AUVMS

In order to avoid the vibration shock caused by the full extension of the manipulator of autonomous underwater vehicle-manipulator system (AUVMS), a coordinated motion planning method based on virtual workspace constraints is proposed. A certain subset of the flexible workspace of the manipulator is selected as the virtual workspace in order to constraint the motion of the end effector. The soft joint limits is used to avoid self-interference, and the positional relationship between the end effector and the virtual workspace is determined by ray detection algorithm based on convex hull. The vehicle command velocity corresponding to the different self-movement states of AUVMS is deduced, so as to move the vehicle as little as possible. The results show that the proposed method not only solves the problem of the fully extended of the manipulator, but makes the tracking accuracy improved compared to the weighted minimum norm method. The position error is within ± 0.04 m, and the orientation error is within ± 3 °.