Robotic Sculpting with Collision-free Motion Planning in Voxel Space

TL;DR

This paper presents a novel collision-free motion planning algorithm for robotic sculpting in voxel space, enabling efficient material removal with multi-axis manipulators, demonstrated through simulation of sculpting Michelangelo's David.

Contribution

The paper introduces a search-based planning algorithm utilizing octrees for faster collision-free trajectory generation in robotic sculpting tasks.

Findings

Significant speedup using octree decomposition

Successful simulation of sculpting Michelangelo's David

Effective collision-free trajectory planning in voxel space

Abstract

In this paper, we explore the task of robot sculpting. We propose a search based planning algorithm to solve the problem of sculpting by material removal with a multi-axis manipulator. We generate collision free trajectories for a manipulator using best-first search in voxel space. We also show significant speedup of our algorithm by using octrees to decompose the voxel space. We demonstrate our algorithm on a multi-axis manipulator in simulation by sculpting Michelangelo's Statue of David, evaluate certain metrics of our algorithm and discuss future goals for the project.