Research on Obstacle Avoidance of a 7-DOF Manipulator

A model was build to resolve obstacle avoidance problem of a 7-DOF redundant manipulator. It proposes that the link of redundant manipulator is enveloped by cylindrical space, and the obstacle is enveloped in a spherical space. The RRT algorithm and the RRT-Connect algorithm were employed to execute avoiding obstacles in the workspace. The simulation results showed that the RRT-Connect algorithm was superior to the RRT algorithm by shorter running time and less path length. A 7-DOF redundant manipulator was tested to verify the obstacle avoidance performance of the RRT-Connect algorithm. It can avoid obstacles and reach the target quickly.