Riemannian Optimization-based Whole-body Obstacle Avoidance for Mobile Continuum Robots in Cluttered Environments
Inspired by the coordination of global motion and local shape adaptation in snakes, elephant trunks, and octopus arms, we propose a unified planning and control framework for mobile continuum robots in cluttered and confined environments. Existing approaches often address high-level path planning and local motion control separately, limiting coordinated base-arm motion, kinematic consistency, and collision avoidance. Our framework integrates long-horizon trajectory planning with real-time geometric refinement under kinematic and environmental constraints. The global layer combines A* search with minimum-jerk planning to generate smooth reference trajectories. The local layer uses a geometry-consistent inverse kinematics solver and Riemannian optimization to coordinate mobile-base motion and continuum deformation while avoiding obstacles. We evaluate the framework through simulated pipe-traversal tasks with multiple baseline planners and real-world experiments involving navigation among dense obstacles and manipulation in confined spaces. Results demonstrate improved motion consistency, feasibility, and adaptability, supporting coordinated whole-body motion of mobile continuum robots in constrained environments.