OBSTACLE-AVOIDANCE ALGORITHM WITH DYNAMIC STABILITY FOR REDUNDANT ROBOT MANIPULATOR WITH FRUIT-ILARVESTING APPLICATIONS

Fruit harvesting robots should have more diversity and flexibility in the working conditions and environments than industrial robots. This paper presents an efficient optimization algorithm for redundant manipulators to avoid obstacles using dynamic performance criteria, while the optimization schemes of the previous studies used the performance criteria using kinematic approach. Feasibility and effectiveness of this algorithm were tested through simulations on a 3-degrees-of-freedom manipulator made for this study. Only the position of the end-effector was controlled , which requires only three degrees of freedom. Remaining joints, except for the wrist roll joint, which does not contribute to the end-effector linear velocity, provide two degrees of redundancy. The algorithm was effective to avoid obstacles in the workspace even through the collision occurred in extended workspace, and it was found be to a useful design tool which gives more flexibility to design conditions nd to find the mechanical constraints for fruit harvesting robots.