Manipulator trajectory planning using artificial potential field

This paper presents a proposed technique in a manipulator trajectory planning. Each link is considered herein as a rigid body. Two types of attractive potential functions are proposed for achieving both translation and rotation maneuvers. Translation attractive potential is used for bringing one point of each link to its desired location. A moving attractive well is defined at joint locations to ensure no separation between links. Error quaternions are then used to perform rotational maneuver of links and to simulate joint rotation.