Target pose computation for nonholonomic mobile manipulators

This paper presents a path planning algorithm for nonholonomic mobile manipulators that computes the robot trajectory by maximizing a performance index that combines manipulability and pose stability measures. The objective of this method is to find the best platform location when the robot end-effector reaches a given pose or tracks a desired trajectory. Furthermore, the proposed approach decouples the path planning computation from the robot control, thus maximizing manipulability and stability, and accounting for the nonholonomic constraints at the execution phase. The method proposed is suitable for free roaming and for obstacle avoidance maneuvers. The proposed method is validated by simulation examples and results are presented.