Bezier curve based path planning for a mobile manipulator in unknown environments

This paper presents a collision-free path planning approach based on Bezier curve for a mobile manipulator with the endpoints restricted by the manipulator. Based on these candidate endpoints and the initial posture of mobile manipulator, a series of feasible Bezier paths are obtained with the constraints from velocity, acceleration and environment. And then the optimal collision-free path is determined according to the related information of the path as well as obstacles. The mobile manipulator has the ability to adapt to the environment and the optimal path will be updated once the new detected obstacles block this path. The path planning approach is verified by simulations.