Two Stage Path Planning Method for Co-Worked Double Industrial Robots

It is a significant capability for multi-industrial robots to plan an optimal collision-free path for both end-effectors and robotic arms. However, the path planning methods for co-worked multi-industrial robots, especially for closely co-worked industrial robots is still very limited. In this paper, to tackle the planning problem that has a specified distance constraint of end-effector in the context of complex collision avoidance, a two stage path planning method is proposed for the co-worked double industrial robot. In this two stage path planning method, the dual path planning with the distance constraint and the joint space planning of double robots are integrated sequentially. For the first stage, an algorithm named random sampling particle swarm optimization (RSPSO) is developed to plan the path for each end-effector, which can plan an optimal collision-free path with the specified distance constraint. For the second stage, the joint space planning that combines the inverse kinematics, D-H method and collision detection is performed to find the angular displacements with collision avoidance for dual robotic arms. Two simulation examples and an experiment are used to verify the proposed method.