Obstacle Avoidance Method for a Redundant Manipulator Based on a Configuration Plane

This paper presents a novel approach of obstacle avoidance for redundant manipulators, which is challenging with the considerations of the building of universal kinematics, the formation of dynamics, and the generation of trajectories. A universal approach to deal with obstacle avoidance for the redundant manipulator, that is based on the configuration plane, is presented. The paper also examines common serial robot configurations and introduces a method for classification, partitioning, simplification, and forms of expression used in the workspace to define the configuration plane. This relatively new method is combined with a weighted space vector method to match the configuration plane and solve the inverse kinematics problem. The proposed planner is demonstrated with examples, in which the proposed planner is shown to be capable of providing a smoother trajectory.