Redundant Robotic Manipulator Path Planning for Real-Time Obstacle and Self-Collision Avoidance

This paper presents a method to generate joint trajectories for a redundant manipulator. The control system of the manipulator determines the joint references so that the goal pose can be reached without any collisions, in real-time. The control system checks weather any part of the manipulator is at risk of colliding with itself or with any obstacles. If there is a risk of collision, then the collision server computes the exact points where the collision is about to happen and calculates the shortest distance between the colliding objects. The joint trajectories of the manipulator are modified so that collisions will be avoided while at the same time, the trajectory of the end-effector maintains its initial trajectory if possible. Experimental results are given for a 7 DOF redundant manipulator to demonstrate the capability of the collision avoidance control system.