An efficient algorithm for real time collision detection involving a continuum manipulator with multiple uniform-curvature sections

Abstract

SUMMARYA continuum manipulator, such as a multisection trunk/tentacle robot, performs manipulation tasks by continuously deforming into different concave shapes. While such a robot is promising for manipulating a wide range of objects in less-structured and cluttered environments, it poses a greater challenge to collision detection than conventional, articulated manipulators. Existing collision detection algorithms are built upon intersection checking between convex primitives, such as between two convex polygons or polyhedra, with the assumption that both the manipulator and the objects in the environment are modeled in terms of those primitives, for example, as polygonal meshes. However, to approximate a continuum manipulator with a polygonal mesh requires a fine mesh because of its concavity, and each time the manipulator changes its configuration by deforming its shape, the mesh has to be updated for the new configuration. This makes mesh-based collision detection involving such a robot much more computationally expensive than that involving an articulated manipulator with rigid links.Hence, we introduce an efficient algorithm for Collision Detection between a Continuum Manipulator (CD-CoM) and its environment based on analytical intersection checking with nonconvex primitives. Our algorithm applies to the exact model of any continuum manipulator consisting of multiple uniform-curvature sections of toroidal and (sometimes) cylindrical shapes as well as more general continuum manipulators whose sections can be approximated by toroidal and cylindrical primitives. Our test results show that using this algorithm is both more accurate and efficient in time and space to detect collisions than approximating a continuum manipulator as a polygonal mesh. Moreover, the CD-CoM algorithm also provides the minimum distance information between the continuum manipulator and objects when there is no collision. Such an efficient algorithm is essential for path/trajectory planning of continuum manipulators in real-time.