Collision avoidance of two general robot manipulators by minimum delay time

A simple time delay method for avoiding collisions between two general robot arms is proposed. Links of the robots are approximated by polyhedra and the danger of collision between two robots is expressed by distance functions defined between the robots. The collision map scheme, which can describe collisions between two robots effectively, is adopted. The minimum delay time value needed for collision avoidance is obtained by a simple procedure of following the boundary contour of collision region on collision map. To demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed time delay method, a computer simulation study is shown where a collision is likely to occur realistically