ROBOTICS PLANNING
Task Planning
• By virtue of their versatility, robots can be difficult to
program, especially for tasks requiring complex
motions involving sensory feedback. In order to
simplify programming, task-level languages exist that
specify actions in terms of their effects on objects.
• Example: pin A programmer should be able to specify
that the robot should put a pin in a hole, without
telling it what sequence of operators to use, or having
to think about its sensory or motor operators.
Task planning is divided into three phases:
modeling,
task specification, and
manipulator program synthesis.
There are three approaches to specifying the
model state:
• Using a CAD system to draw the positions of the objects in the
desired configuration.
• Using the robot itself to specify its configurations and to locate the
object features.
• Using symbolic spatial relationships between object features (such as
(face1 against face2). This is the most common method, but must be
converted into numerical form to be used.
• One problem is that these configurations may
overconstrain the state.
• Symmetry is an example; it does not matter what the
orientation of a peg in a hole is.
• The final state may also not completely specify the
operation; for example, it may not say how hard to
tighten a bolt.
THREE BASIC KINDS OF MOTIONS
• free motion,
• guarded motion, and
• compliant motion.
An important part of robot program synthesis should
be the inclusion of sensor tests for error detection.
Motion Planning
• The fundamental problem in robotics is deciding what
motions the robot should perform in order to achieve
a goal arrangement of physical objects.
Skeletonization (Roadmap) Methods
• Skeletonization methods collapse
the configuration space into a one-
dimensional subset, or skeleton.
• They then require that paths lie
along the skeleton.
• If the initial and goal points do not
lie on the skeleton, short
connecting paths are added to join
them to the nearest points on the
skeleton.
Kinds of Skeletonization
Visibility Graphs
• The original roadmap method, visibility graphs apply to 2D
configuration spaces with polygonal C-obstacle regions.
Voronoi diagram
• A roadmap method based on retraction.
• The Voronoi diagram consists of those curves in the space that are
equidistant (in between) from two or more obstacles; these curves
form the skeleton.
Cell Decomposition
• A global approach to motion planning. The intuitive
idea is to break the space down into a finite number
of discrete chunks.
• Cell decomposition breaks free space down into
simple regions called cells such that any path between
any two configurations in a cell can easily be
generated.
Potential Fields
A local approach to motion planning. The goal
configuration generates an attractive potential
that pulls the robot toward it; C-obstacles
generate repulsive potential that pushes
the robot away.
Landmark-Based Navigation
Landmark-based navigation assumes that the environment
contains easily recognizable, unique landmarks.
A landmark is modeled as a point surrounded by a field of
influence.
Within this field of influence, the robot knows its position exactly.
Outside of all fields of influence, the robot has no direct position
information.
Configuration space
Used to determine if there is a path by which a robot can
move from one place to another.
Real obstacles in the world are mapped to configuration
space obstacles, and the remaining free space is all of
configuration space except the part occupied by those
obstacles.
Multiple Moving Objects
Obstacles may be moving.
There may be multiple robots. The robots themselves
may be articulated (i.e., made of rigid objects
connected by joints).
Kinematic Constraints
A robot's motions may be restricted by kinematic constraints. There are two
kinds:
A holonomic equality constraint is an equality relation among the
parameters of the minimally-represented configuration space that can be
solved for one of the parameters. For example, a robot limited to rotating
around a fixed axis has a configuration space of dimension 4 instead of 6.
A nonholonomic equality constraint is a non-integrable equation involving
the configuration parameters and their derivatives (velocity parameters).
Such a constraint does not reduce the dimension of the configuration space,
but instead reduces the dimension of the space of possible differential
motions.
Uncertainty
A robot may have little or no prior knowledge about its
workspace.
Grasp Planning
Many typical robot operations require the robot to
grasp an object. The rest of the operation is strongly
influenced by choices made during grasping.
Grasping requires positioning the gripper on the
object, which requires generating a path to this
position. The grasp position must be accessible,
stable, and robust enough to resist some external
force.
There are three principal considerations in gripping an
object. They are:
• safety -- the robot must be safe in the initial and final
configurations
• reachability -- the robot must be able to reach the initial
grasping configuration and, with the object in hand, reach
the final configuration
• stability -- the grasp should be stable in the presence of
forces exerted on the grasped object during transfer and
parts-mating motions