Adaptive Step RRT*-Based Method for Path Planning of Tea-Picking Robotic Arm

The Adaptive Step RRT* (AS-RRT*) path planning algorithm for tea-picking robotic arms was proposed as a solution to the autonomy, safety, and efficiency problems inherent to tea-picking robots in tea plantations. The algorithm employs an accumulator-based sampling point selection strategy to enhance the efficiency of path planning and the quality of the resulting path. It combines fast connectivity and pruning optimization methods to identify collision-free paths in a shorter time and to reduce the computational burden. It also incorporates a dynamic step length adjustment mechanism following collision detection, ensuring that the robot arm can avoid obstacles in real time. Furthermore, the generated paths were optimized through the introduction of redundant node removal and curve smoothing techniques. In the robotic arm motion planning experiments, the depth vision sensor was employed to obtain three-dimensional information within the tea plantation as the data source. The experimental results demonstrate that the AS-RRT* algorithm reduces the path length by 14.18% and the path planning time is less than 1 s, indicating that the proposed method enhances the efficiency of path planning and obstacle avoidance performance of the tea-picking robot arm.