A TASK PLANNER FOR A DUAL-ARM ROBOT: A GEOMETRIC FORMULATION

A TASK PLANNER FOR A DUAL-ARM ROBOT:  A GEOMETRIC FORMULATION

A dual-arm manipulator is necessary for many tasks  that only a pair of human  arms can do. The task planning effort, however, requires determination of the  task specific arm movements which need not be unique for any given task.

For example- pouring water from a jug to a cup can be executed in a variety of ways depending, perhaps, on the height of the cup and amount of water in the jug.  The  challenge,  therefore,  lies  in  the  correct  identification  of  the  critical moves that are instrumental in execution of the task.

A general task planning cannot merely be a path from an initial position to a final destination- which is rather relevant for pick & place tasks. We present here  an  approach  to  find  the  task  specific  maneuvers  using  the  concept  of virtual links.

We  imagine  the  task  to  be  nothing  more  than  the  movements  of  invisible revolute and prismatic joints of a virtual robot which is connected to the arms of an actual manipulator. Using this approach we can find complex path that the  manipulators  have  to  generate  in  order  to  smoothly  transit  from  one positionorientation (p,R) pair to another.

Index Terms  

Robotic manipulator; Task planning; Cooperative robots.