Exact motion planning for tractor-trailer robots

Abstract

A tractor-trailer robot consists of a car-like tractor towing a passive trailer. Due to its highly nonholonomic nature, the kinematics of this type of robot are complicated and difficult to compute. We present exact closed-form solutions for the kinematic parameters of a tractor-trailer robot and use them to construct an exact and efficient motion planner in the absence of obstacles. This local planner can be employed in a probabilistic global planner, which allows us to plan motions in the presence of obstacles.