Optimal Planning of Pushing Operation for an Object by a Robot.

Abstract

In this paper, we propose a method of planning of pushing operation, which is to move an object on a floor to a desired position and orientation by one arm robot. We suppose that the distribution of magnitude of friction between the object and the floor is known. This method is as follows. During one pushing motion, the position of the contact point between the object and the pusher, and the direction of its velocity are kept to be constant with respect to the object, so that the path of it will be an arc or a straight line. Some paths to the desired position and orientation are generated by connecting these arc and straight paths. The optimal path is decided to minimize a performance index as a function of the number of pushing, the total traveling distance, and the total change of angle. We show an example of planning for a polygonal object under the case where a finite number of contact points, push directions, and intermediate orientations of the object are given. Numerical examples show the effectiveness of the proposed method.