ROBOT PATH PLANNING: AVOIDING OBSTACLES

Abstract

Robot manipulators are programmable articulated mechanisms designed to execute a great variety of tasks in a repetitive way. His conception foresees versatility so that they can be adapted to several operational situations. In various cases the robot trajectory is constrained by the existence of obstacles in its workspace. Obviously, the presence of obstacles imposes additional difficulties because the end-effector as well as the other links of the robot is supposed to avoid the obstacles and, at the same time, to follow specifications of initial and final positioning, as previously define by the user. The present contribution is devoted to solve the problem of path planning and obstacle avoidance for 3D robot systems. Computational results demonstrate the applicability and efficiency of the methodology proposed.