A Predictive Technique for the Real-Time Trajectory Scaling under High-Order Constraints

Modern robotic systems must be able to react to unexpected environmental events. To this purpose, planning techniques for the real-time generation/modification of trajectories have been developed in recent times. In the frequent case of applications which require following a predefined path, the assigned timing law must be inspected in real time so as to verify whether it satisfies the system constraints, or conversely, if it must be scaled in order to obtain a feasible trajectory. The problem has been addressed in several ways in the literature. One of the known approaches, based on the use of nonlinear filters, is revised in this article in order to return feasible solutions under any circumstances. Differently from alternative strategies, it manages constraints up to the torque derivatives and has evaluation times compatible with the ones required by modern control systems. The proposed technique is validated through simulations and real experiments. Comparisons are proposed with an algorithm based on a model predictive technique and with an alternative scaling system.