Collision-free trajectory planning for dual robot arms

A collision-free trajectory planning algorithm is proposed to optimally coordinate two robots working in a common 3-D workspace. Each link of the two robots is modeled as a line segment and by their motion priority, one of the two robots is chosen as the master and the other the slave. And the one-step-ahead minimum distance between the two robots is computed by moving the master to the next location on its specified trajectory. Then the nominal trajectory of the slave is modified such that the distance between the next locations of the master and the slave must be larger than a prespecified allowable minimum distance. Here the weighted sum of the trajectory error and the joint motions of the slave is minimized by using the linear programming technique under the constraints that joint angle and velocity limits are not violated. To show the validity of the proposed algorithm, a numerical example is illustrated by employing a two dof's and a three dof's planar robots.