A real-time motion planning algorithm for a hyper-redundant set of mechanisms

Abstract

SUMMARY We introduce a novel probabilistic algorithm (CPRM) for real-time motion planning in the configuration space ${\EuScript C}$ . Our algorithm differs from a probabilistic road map (PRM) algorithm in the motion between a pair of anchoring points (local planner) which takes place on the boundary of the obstacle subspace ${\EuScript O}$ . We define a varying potential field f on ∂ ${\EuScript O}$ as a Morse function and follow $\vec{\nabla} f$ . We then exemplify our algorithm on a redundant worm climbing robot with n degrees of freedom and compare our algorithm running results with those of the PRM.