Fast motion planning for anthropometric figures with many degrees of freedom

The authors discuss a class of robots which resemble the human structure. They are characterized by having a torso, two manipulator arms, a head mounted with vision system, and a lower body which is either a transport unit or legs. The total number of degrees-of-freedom involved is usually fairly large for these robots. An efficient motion planning algorithm for this type of robot is an aid to the achievement of task level programming. An efficient algorithm is presented that has successfully computed collision-free motions for anthropometric figures with many degrees of freedom within a cluttered environment