An obstacle avoidance path planning algorithm to simulate hyper redundant manipulators for tokamaks maintenance

The present work proposes an obstacle avoidance path planning algorithm for virtual simulations of hyper-redundant manipulators, with the possibility to customize the optimization criteria to select the best trajectory given in output. For test purposes, the effectiveness of the proposed Inverse Kinematic algorithm has been tested by simulating the Remote Maintenance (RM) tasks conducted by the HyRMan: the Hyper Redundant Manipulator developed for the Divertor Tokamak Test (DTT) project. The algorithm has been employed to simulate some critical handling tasks of the First Wall (FW) modules, with a specific optimization criterion as an example of its potentialities.