Motion planning for mobile manipulator with keeping manipulability

Our research goal is to realize a motion planning for an intelligent mobile manipulator. To plan a mobile manipulator's motion, it is popular that the base robot motion is regarded as manipulator's extra joints, and the whole system is considered as a redundant manipulator. In this case, the locomotion controller is a part of the manipulator controller. However, it is difficult to implement both controllers as one controller, in our implementation experience, because of difference of actuators' character. In this research, we focus on a path planning algorithm for a mobile base with keeping manipulability at the tip of the mounted manipulator. In this case, the locomotion controller is independent from the manipulator controller, and a cooperative motion is realized by a communication between both controllers. In this paper, we propose a motion planning algorithm for a mobile manipulator, and report several experimental results.