PATH TRACKING WITH THE LINKS OF A PLANAR HYPER-REDUNDANT ROBOTIC MANIPULATOR

A technique for path tracking with the links of a planar hyper-redunda nt robotic manipulator is presented. It is a joint-space trajectory pl anning method that can be used for obstacle avoidance by ensuring that the links of the manipulator closely follow a collision-free path pla nned for the tool. A closed-form formulation of resolved-motion rate c ontrol equations is developed that decomposes the manipulator into pro ximal and distal parts. The joint velocities are constrained to ensure that the far distal links remain tangent to the tool path, while the near distal links and the proximal links assume a compressed configura tion near the base. Path tracking is illustrated with several examples that examine the effects of controller gain, link length, and number of links. (C) 1995 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.