Obstacle accommodation motion planning

A new robot path planning methodology called obstacle accommodation has been introduced for robots in cluttered environments. This methodology does not attempt to avoid physical contact between a robot and obstacles. Instead, it controls the contact to prevent damage to the robot. Obstacle accommodation represents a new robotic paradigm in which obstacles can contact robots at unspecified positions, i.e., a contact point can be at any point on any link. Obstacle accommodation requires analysis in kinematics, motion planning, dynamics, and control. This paper deals with the development of the kinematic constraints and with motion planning under these constraints. We begin by providing a general formulation of the motion constraints due to contact with obstacles. Next, a new inverse kinematics is presented that provides joint motion for robots under contact constraints. Finally, the new motion planning algorithm for robot motion in a cluttered environment is provided. The motion planning algorithm is verified by two examples, one on a linkage robot and the other on a mobile robot.