Collision and Rollover-Free g² Path Planning for Mobile Manipulation

Abstract

This paper presents a path planning refinement technique that allows the efficient collision and rollover-free motion planning for mobile manipulator robots working on rough terrain. First, the necessary theoretical background on a mobile manipulator's kinematics and dynamic stability measure is introduced. Then, after the brief introduction of the sampling-based path planning problem, the additional refinement stage and its problem formulation will be introduced. Within the refinement stage, the novel Bézier control point addition method is introduced to allow for fast, collision and rollover-free path smoothing using curvature-continuous parametrized curves. Analytical proofs and simulated comparisons are provided in the paper to show effectiveness. The beneficial effect of the refined path on trajectory planning will also be demonstrated through simulation.