Motion planning and redundancy resolution of a rover manipulator

This paper proposes a cooperative motion planning and redundancy resolution technique for a rover manipulator working on rough terrain in a 3-dimensional workspace. The primary motion requirement is accomplished by the manipulator to cover a prescribed trajectory, whereas the rover moves to augment its workspace. The proposed approach involves formulating the trajectory planning as non-linear constrained optimization problem, in which the pose of the platform is computed to achieve the desired trajectory by satisfying joint angle constraints and manipulability measure of the manipulator. The method generates a natural optimized motion for the rover manipulator by solving the constrained optimization problem using the Augmented Lagrangian Method (ALM). Several simulations have been conducted and a number of test cases have been presented to establish the efficacy of the proposed method in providing acceptable path.