A Global Approach to Path Planning for Redundant Manipulators

An approach to the path planning of redundant manipulators is presented. The path planning problem is posed as a finite-time nonlinear control problem which can be solved by a Newton-Raphson type algorithm. This technique is capable of handling various goal task definitions, as well as incorporating both joint and task space constraints. The algorithm shows promising results in planning joint path sequences and Cartesian tip tracking and goal endpoint specifications. In contrast to local approaches, this algorithm is less prone to problems such as singularities and local minima. Applications to planar 3-R and 4-R arms, cooperating 3-R arms and a spatial nine-degrees-of-freedom arm are included.