Trajectory planning with obstacle avoidance for a concrete pump using harmonic potentials

Abstract

Abstract The operation of concrete pumps is increasingly supported by assistance systems. They facilitate the complex control task and reduce the risk of accidents. In this paper a trajectory planner for point-to-point motion of a concrete pump is presented. The method is based on harmonic artificial potentials to plan the tool center point motion in the task space and constrained quadratic optimization to convert the task space motion into the configuration space. The algorithm is validated by simulation for a five-link concrete pump.