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

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 TopAY, 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 TopAY 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/TopAY-Planner/TopAY .