Collision Avoidance Control Using Null Space Criteria

A new strategy to on-line collision-avoidance of the redundant robots with obstacles is presented. The strategy allows the use of redundant degrees of freedom such that a manipulator can avoid obstacles while tracking the desired end-effectors trajectory. The effectiveness of the proposed strategy based on null space criteria is discussed by theoretical considerations. The strategy is based on the redundant inverse kinematics and leads to a favourable ability of redundant robots to avoid the collisions with obstacles. This strategy has the advantage that the configuration of the manipulator can be influenced by further requirements such as joint limits and so the self-collision is avoided.