A motion planning methodology for rhombic-like vehicles for ITER remote handling operations

Abstract The Transfer Cask System (TCS) is one of the adopted Remote Handling (RH) components to operate on the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER). During maintenance operations, the TCS is expected to move between specified locations in different levels of the Tokamak Building (TB), transporting heavy and highly activated components while meeting competing safety requirements. This paper proposes a complete motion planning methodology, covering path optimization and trajectory evaluation for static but tightly constrained scenarios. The optimization scheme is inspired on the elastic bands method, and takes into account geometric and kinematic robot considerations.