Report Number: CS-TR-94-1532
Institution: Stanford University, Department of Computer Science
Title: Planning the Collision-Free Paths of an Actively Flexible
Manipulator
Author: Banon, Jose
Date: December 1994
Abstract: Most robot manipulators consist of a small sequence of rigid
links connected by articulated joints. However, robot
dexterity is considerably enhanced when the number of joints
is large or infinite. Additional joints make it possible to
manipulate objects in cluttered environments where
non-redundant robots are useless. In this paper we consider a
simulated actively flexible manipulator (AFM), i.e. a
manipulator whose flexibility can be directly controlled by
its actuators. We propose an efficient method for planning
the collision-free paths of an AFM in a three-dimensional
workspace. We implemented this method on a graphic
workstation and experimented with it on several examples.
http://i.stanford.edu/pub/cstr/reports/cs/tr/94/1532/CS-TR-94-1532.pdf