Avoidance System for Moving Obstacles

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Abstract
This paper presents a system which moves a robot through Cartesian space in the presence of objects which are also moving, in predictable trajectories. The method presented calculates a piecewise linear path with piecewise constant velocities. This is done by assuming a straight-line path from the start to the goal, and recursively planning smaller subpaths if collisions are detected. Two methods for generating subgoals are presented and compared. The first is a blind method employing little information on the location of the objects at collision time. The second is a method using Khatib's artificial potential functions for locating the subgoal. The algorithm currently is implemented in two dimensions, and represents an arbitrary number of objects by their bounding circles. The robot is represented by a point. The algorithm guarantees that all movement of the robot will take place in a specified workspace. In addition the robot is required to stay on a specified time schedule, within a certain tolerance. Obstacle trajectories are constrained to be represented as quadratic parametric equations in time. The paper points out some obvious extensions to this work. These include extensions to three dimensions, fine-motion planning with complex shapes, and use of the system with objects following unknown trajectories.© (1987) COPYRIGHT SPIE--The International Society for Optical Engineering. Downloading of the abstract is permitted for personal use only.

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