Collision-free path planning for multirobot systems

The authors discuss a real-time algorithm for planning collision-free navigation or manipulation paths in dynamic, cluttered environments. A Newton-like iteration is used to determine a sequence of knot points that guide the motion of several robots in a velocity vector field toward their targets while avoiding collisions with a set of moving obstacles. Complex targets and obstacles are modeled with elliptical primitives. The velocity field can be updated online, and the path locally replanned in response to environmental changes. The velocity field approach is applied to two main problems: (i) two-robot path planning with curvature constraints, and (ii) coordinated redundant and bilateral manipulation