Collision-free Motion Planning for Multi-Degree of Freedom Manipulator with Electrified Wire

Abstract

This paper proposes a practical method of collision-free motion planning for multi-degree of freedom manipulators. The proposed method has mainly two concepts. Under this method, the motion planning is considered in real space instead of configuration space in order to reduce the calculation amount. Meanwhile, it is well known that a path planning is executed without local minima under a potential field based on Laplace's equation because such environment has no minimal point. Therefore, we introduced an electrostatic field based on Laplace's equation for path planning of multi-degree of freedom manipulator. Specifically, the path planning of the end-effecter of manipulator is executed under the potential field produced by solving Laplace's differential equation. On the other hand, for the determination of the whole manipulator's shape after the end-effecter position has been derived, we implemented the form changing of the electrical-charged wire in the electrostatic field. Here, this electrical-charged wire is named as “Electrified Wire". By using this method, the collision-free shape of manipulator can be determined easily. For the explanation of this method, we produced the collision-free motion planning of 10DOF manipulator as a simple example.