Turning Paths Into Trajectories Using Parabolic Blends

Abstract

We present an approach for converting a path of multiple continuous linear segments into a trajectory that satisfies velocity and acceleration constraints and closely follows the given path without coming to a complete stop at every waypoint. Our method applies parabolic blends around waypoints to improve speed. In contrast to established methods that smooth trajectories with parabolic blends, our method does not require the timing of waypoints or durations of blend phases. This makes our approach particularly useful for robots that must follow kinematic paths that are not explicitly parametrized by time. Our method chooses timing automatically to achieve high performance while satisfying the velocity and acceleration constraints of a given robot.