Local Motion Planning for Manipulators Based on Shrinking and Growing; Geometry Models

A new approach to motion planning for manipulators is presented. A collision-free path is initially obtained by shrinking the robot’s geometry model, and this path is modified to remain collision-free while the robot is re-inflated. For this purpose, a measure based on the factor needed to shrink the robot’s geometry model in a certain configuration to get it free of collisions as defined. This measure serves as a potential and is used to modify whole trajectories. The planning information is evaluated locally, no preprocessing or global potential diffusion is required. To overcome local minima, the planner is embedded in a random global exploration algorithm. Simulation results demonstrate the power of this approach.

[1]  Charles W. Warren,et al.  Multiple robot path coordination using artificial potential fields , 1990, Proceedings., IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation.

[2]  Gerd Hirzinger.  ROTEX - The First Space Robot Technology Experiment , 1993, ISER.

[3]  Lydia E. Kavraki,et al.  Probabilistic roadmaps for path planning in high-dimensional configuration spaces , 1996, IEEE Trans. Robotics Autom..

[4]  Kamal K. Gupta,et al.  Practical global motion planning for many degrees of freedom: a novel approach within sequential framework , 1994, Proceedings of the 1994 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation.

[5]  Jean-Claude Latombe,et al.  Robot motion planning , 1970, The Kluwer international series in engineering and computer science.

[6]  Elmer G. Gilbert,et al.  Robot path planning with penetration growth distance , 1994, Proceedings of the 1994 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation.