TopAY: Efficient Trajectory Planning for Differential Drive Mobile Manipulators via Topological Paths Search and Arc Length-Yaw Parameterization

Abstract-- Differential drive mobile manipulators combine the mobility of wheeled bases with the manipulation capability of multi-joint arms, enabling versatile applications but posing considerable challenges for trajectory planning due to their high-dimensional state space and nonholonomic constraints. This paper introduces T opA Y, an optimization-based planning framework designed for efficient and safe trajectory generation for differential drive mobile manipulators. The framework employs a hierarchical initial value acquisition strategy, including topological paths search for the base and parallel sampling for the manipulator . A polynomial trajectory representation with arc length-yaw parameterization is also proposed to reduce optimization complexity while preserving dynamic feasibility. Extensive simulation and real-world experiments validate that T opA Y achieves higher planning efficiency and success rates than state-of-the-art method in dense and complex scenarios. The source code is released at https://github.com/T Differential drive mobile manipulator (DDMoMa), comprising multi-joint manipulator(s) mounted on a differential drive base (DDB), integrates rich manipulation ability of manipulators and mobility of wheeled robots.