Coordinated obstacle avoidance of a mobile manipulator

In the absence of obstacles, the study of mobile manipulators is mainly concerned with the coordination of locomotion and manipulation. In the presence of obstacles, one must simultaneously consider the obstacle avoidance problem and the coordination problem. This paper presents a control method for mobile manipulators that integrates an obstacle avoidance scheme with a coordination scheme. The obstacle avoidance scheme is based on superquadric potential functions. The coordination scheme is based on preferred operating regions. The controller allows a mobile manipulator to retain optimal or sub-optimal configurations while avoiding obstacles. Simulation results are presented to demonstrate the effectiveness of the control method