Path planning of mobile manipulator with genetic-fuzzy controller in flexible manufacturing cell

This paper presents a new intelligent path planning method for motions of the mobile manipulator in FMC. It simulates the way of human actions to control the mobile manipulator according to a master-slave hierarchical control strategy. The method can find path using the genetic fuzzy controller (GFC) while in moving, and switch to the collision-free path planner based on the CCJA and DA^* algorithms when in requirement of performing the tasks such as load or unload. In this paper, the GFC is developed to automatically generate the fuzzy if-then rules from samples, which makes the fuzzy rules base rich and complete continuously. In addition, a new modeling approach for manipulator is presented. It is called the C-space modeling based on CCJA. Using this technique, the computation time and the memory space are greatly saved. Moreover, a modified DA^* algorithm with dynamic step-changeable and goal-visible-test is also used to accelerate the search process. Simulation results of the mobile manipulator performing object transporting task show the method presented is feasible.