Intelligent Joint Space Path Planning: Enhancing Motion Feasibility with Goal-Driven and Potential Field Strategies

Traditional path-planning algorithms for robotic manipulators typically focus on end-effector planning, often neglecting complete collision avoidance for the entire manipulator. Additionally, many existing approaches suffer from high time complexity and are easily trapped in local extremes. To address these challenges, this paper proposes a goal-biased bidirectional artificial potential field-based rapidly-exploring random tree* (GBAPF-RRT*) algorithm, which enhances both target guidance and obstacle avoidance capabilities of the manipulator. Firstly, we utilize a Gaussian distribution to add heuristic guidance into the exploration of the robotic manipulator, thereby accelerating the search speed of the RRT*. Then, we combine the modified repulsion function to prevent the random tree from trapping in a local extreme. Finally, sufficient numerical simulations and physical experiments are conducted in the joint space to verify the effectiveness and superiority of the proposed algorithm. Comparative results indicate that our proposed method achieves a faster search speed and a shorter path in complex planning scenarios.