Tool Exchangeable Grasp/Assembly Planner

TL;DR

This paper introduces a comprehensive assembly planner for manipulators that integrates sequence planning, motion, grasping, and gripper exchange, enabling automated assembly with multiple grippers.

Contribution

It presents a novel method for planning assembly sequences and motions that include automatic gripper exchange, applicable to complex assembly tasks with multiple grippers.

Findings

Successful numerical simulations demonstrate the method's effectiveness.

Physical experiments validate the practical applicability of the proposed planner.

Abstract

This paper proposes a novel assembly planner for a manipulator which can simultaneously plan assembly sequence, robot motion, grasping configuration, and exchange of grippers. Our assembly planner assumes multiple grippers and can automatically selects a feasible one to assemble a part. For a given AND/OR graph of an assembly task, we consider generating the assembly graph from which assembly motion of a robot can be planned. The edges of the assembly graph are composed of three kinds of paths, i.e., transfer/assembly paths, transit paths and tool exchange paths. In this paper, we first explain the proposed method for planning assembly motion sequence including the function of gripper exchange. Finally, the effectiveness of the proposed method is confirmed through some numerical examples and a physical experiment.