Jin Wang, Xu-jun Lin, Hai-yun Zhang, Guo-dong Lu, Qiu-liang Pan, and Howard Li
Path planning, 3-D space, manipulator, potential field, sphere treemodel
The potential field (PF) method can be used for path planning in the 3-D space. The drawbacks of the PF include local minima, local oscillation region, and lack of obstacle models. A novel 3-D path planning method is proposed for robot manipulators. By constructing virtual target points, the end effector can escape the local minima and local oscillation regions to reach the target point. The proposed virtual target point is similar to the original target point, which enables the end effector moving towards the target point smoothly. In addition, the sphere tree model is proposed to model obstacles. The proposed PF method is combined with the sphere tree model. Several sub-spheres are constructed to reduce the spatial redundancy of the obstacle model. Then redundant paths are eliminated and the desired path is selected. Finally, to smoothen the path, the Ferguson curve is constructed. The proposed method is implemented using MS Visual Studio. Simulation results illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed 3-D path planning method for robot manipulators.
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