Collision-Free and Energy-Saving Trajectory Planning for Large-Scale Redundant Manipulator Using Improved PSO

The large-scale boom system, such as the five-arm concrete pump truck with the arm length of 36–65 meters, usually operates in an unknown dynamic outdoor environment. The motion safety and the energy consumption are thus the two vital measurements to the effectiveness of the trajectory planning for the large-scale boom system. Due to the redundancy of the large-scale boom system and some drawbacks of the original particle swarm optimization (PSO) algorithm, an improved PSO algorithm is presented to solve the inverse kinematic problem of the redundant large-scale boom system. By the improved PSO algorithm, the energy-saving trajectory planning of the large-scale boom system that operates in a workspace without obstacles and with obstacles is optimized, which considers different important degrees of the subgoals, respectively. The optimal results from the simulation study and the practical application verify the effectiveness of the proposed planning strategy. At the same time, the performance of the improved strategy is compared with that of the traditional, and the superiority is further demonstrated.