Determining the Collision-Free Joint Space Graph for Two Cooperating Robot Manipulators

The problem of path planning for two planar robot manipulators that cooperate in carrying a rectangular object from an initial position and orientation to a destination position and orientation in a 2-D environment is investigated. In this approach, the two robot arms, the carried object and the straight line connecting the two robot bases together are modeled as a 6-link closed chain. The problem of path planning for the 6-link closed chain is solved by two major algorithms: the collision-tree feasible configuration finding algorithm and the collision-free path finding algorithm. The former maps the free space in the Cartesian world space to the robot's joint space in which all the collision-free feasible configurations (CFFC's) for the 6-link closed chain are found. The latter builds a connection graph of the CFFC's and the transitions between any two groups of CFFC's at adjacent joint intervals. Finally, a graph search method is employed to find a collision-free path for each joint of the robot manipulators. The proposed algorithms can deal with cluttered environments and is guaranteed to find a solution if one exists.