A fast, GPU-based geometrical placement planner for unknown sensor-modelled objects and placement areas

Abstract

A Personal Robot should be able to handle unknown objects in unknown environments. For a manipulation task the question what to do with an object once it had been grasped is one of the most essential ones beside the grasping task itself. Moreover, the planning time should be at least as fast as the time the robot needs for its motions. We propose a fast placement planner for sensor-modelled objects in complex environments. The planner computes a stable position and orientation for the object in the environment. The algorithm uses only geometric information, most notably no force or torque sensor is required. In particular, we introduce a novel approach regarding the pose computation. By means of experiments with various household objects the robustness and performance are validated. Further on, we compare our approach with a pose computation using a physics simulation framework.