Local step planning for a robot arm operating in an uncertain environment

摘要

Abstract: We address the problem of sensor-based motion planning for a robot arm manipulator operating amongst obstacles of arbitrary shapes. Collisions might occur at any point on the arm body. The input information is assumed to be coming from a sensitive skin that covers the arm body. The skin is covered by densely distributed proximity sensors. In prior work, step calculation was based on the average of normal vectors to the points on the obstacles sensed by the robot. There are cases when this algorithm can lead to collisions. In this paper an algorithm is proposed for local step planning whereby the direction for the next step motion is done along the intersection of planes tangential to the points of obstacles sensed. The tangential planes themselves are approximated via the least square fit of the sensor readings involved. An expansion of the scheme to robot arms with arbitrary number of links is also discussed.!9