Fast collision-free path planning of tightly coordinated two planar robots

Abstract The coordinated operation of multiple robot arms has broad applications in manufacturing, hazardous material handling, undersea operation, and space exploration. One fundamental problem of the operation of tightly coordinated robots is automatic collision-free path planning. This paper describes a collision-free path planning algorithm for a tightly coordinated two planar robot arm system (TCTPR) with revolute joints. During path planning, a modified A∗ search algorithm is applied to the graph representation of a novel configuration subspace (C-subspace) model of the TCTPR. The evaluation functions of the A∗ algorithm are designed to increase the search speed and to preserve the maneuverability of the TCTPR. The significance of this path planning algorithm is that it can plan the path of the TCTPR in its entire configuration subspaces, and it can map the planned path uniquely to the world space.