A new real-time algorithm for robot manipulator path planning to enable the grasping of moving targets: some design aspects

A new method of real-time robot manipulator path planning, based on the well-known standard proportional navigation (SPN) algorithm, is introduced. The objective is to move a robot manipulator in a nonempty working space to grasp moving elements (called targets), trying to find the shortest Cartesian path. Path planning is then divided in to two orthogonal components, namely the navigation part and the profile of velocities. Some design aspects of the navigation part are mainly addressed, namely selection of the closing velocity and the navigation gain. Stability and sensitivity analyses are performed on the closing velocity and a sub-optimal criterion is reached by studying the navigation constant