Abstract
Redundant manipulators are expected to be effective for the tasks in cluttered environment with many obstacles such as disaster sites and atomic energy facilities. However, it is difficult for the operator to maneuver such redundant manipulators intuitively because there are many possibilities to select self-motion patterns when the manipulator is highly redundant. In this paper, a 9-dof redundant manipulator is chosen as a target of study and an intuitive self-motion pattern is proposed so that the operator can easily maneuver the manipulator to avoid obstacles and some undesirable postures. Comparison experiment, obstacle avoidance task in a simulator, is conducted to confirm the advantage of the proposed method over some naive methods for determining self-motion patterns. The experimental results shows that the proposed method improves the task efficiency and enables the operator to maneuver the manipulator flexibly in various obstacle conditions.
