Task Encoding for Autonomous Machines: The Assembly Problem

Abstract

Assembly problems require that a robotic system with fewer actuated degrees of freedom manipulate an environment with a greater number of unactuated degrees of freedom. This paper explores the possibilities of combining a navigation plan for an “animated” version of the environment with a juggling plan that mediates between the conflicting subgoals of that unconstrained world. The hope is to develop a formalism for constructing globally stabilizing feedback controllers for the nonholonomically constrained dynamical systems that represent the underlying problem.