Planning the motion for a manipulator in a dynamic environment

In this paper, the authors present a novel approach to plan the motion for a manipulator operating in a dynamic environment where the information of obstacles cluttered in the work space is unknown. Obstacles in the work space could be stationary or moving objects. The collision-free motion of the robot is generated in the robot´s configuration space. Based on the fact that the static obstacles always impose constraints on the motion of the robot while the time-varying obstacles only impose constraints on the motion of the robot within the specific time period, hence the time-varying obstacles are treated differently from the static obstacles. The motion planner is composed of two components, i.e. a static planner and a dynamic planner. The potential field mechanism used for the motion planner will guarantee its completeness. Simulation results demonstrate the performance of the planner for a planar robot