REDUNDANCY UTILIZATION FOR OBSTACLE AVOIDANCE OF PLANAR ROBOT MANIPULATORS

Two obstacle avoidance criteria are developed, utilizing the kinematic redundancy of serial redundant manipulators having revolute joints an d tracking pre-determined end effector paths. The first criterion is b ased on the instantaneous distances between certain selected points al ong the manipulator, called configuration control points (CCP), and th e vertices of the obstacles. The optimized joint configurations are ob tained by maximizing these distances. Thus, the links of the manipulat or are configured away from the obstacles. The second criterion uses a different approach, and is based on Voronoi boundaries representing t he equidistant paths between two obstacles. The optimized joint config urations are obtained by minimizing the distances between the CCP and control points selected on the Voronoi boundaries. The validities of t he criteria are demonstrated through computer simulations.