Path planning of hyper-redundant manipulator in developed view

The paper deals with the path planning of hyper-redundant manipulator as a part of NDT technology for circumferential welds on pipe with limited accessibility. Ability to move along the tested weld in very confined space is the major feature which is considered for NDT inspections. Documentation of such a weld and nearby environment typically contains a drawing with Developed view. Such a drawing is beneficially used as a basic input for path planner. The redundant degrees of freedom of manipulator are then used for optimization the robot body shape. The method for intuitive path planning in constrained environment was developed. It is based on obstacle definition via attractive and repulsive objects described in Developed view together with weighted least norm algorithm for robot body fitting around the pipe regarding obstacle avoidance. The proposed planning method and fitting algorithm were tested and proved via virtual robot model with 13 degrees of freedom.