Global trajectory planning for fault tolerant manipulators

Abstract

Whether a task can be completed after a failure of one of the degrees-of-freedom of a redundant manipulator depends on the joint angle at which the failure takes place. It is possible to achieve fault tolerance by globally planning a trajectory that avoids unfavorable joint positions before a failure occurs. In this paper we present a trajectory planning algorithm that guarantees fault tolerance while simultaneously satisfying joint limit and obstacle avoidance requirements.