Time-Optimal and Collision-Free Path Planning for Dual-Manipulator 3D Printer

To meet the demand for high additive manufacturing efficiency, we are working on an FDM (Fused Deposition Modeling) printer called DEXTER which has dual Selective Compliance Articulated Robot Arms (SCARA). We develop a path planner to produce time-optimal motion paths for each of DEXTER’s arms while guaranteeing that the arms do not collide with one another. We present a collision-free path planner for DEXTER’s arms using an improved Sampling-Based Model Predictive Optimization (SBMPO) based on A* type optimization by adding efficient collision determination and a new type of cost function. The simulation results show that the improved SBMPO can be used to efficiently generate smooth collision-free paths and trajectories with bounded velocity and acceleration.