Metal Wire Manipulation Planning for 3D Curving -- How a Low Payload Robot Can Use a Bending Machine to Bend Stiff Metal Wire

TL;DR

This paper introduces a combined task and motion planning approach enabling a low payload robot to effectively manipulate and bend stiff metal wires in 3D by collaborating with a bending machine, enhancing flexibility and robustness.

Contribution

It presents a novel integrated planner that converts 3D curves into bending sequences and robot motions, specifically addressing high-stiffness materials with a low payload robot.

Findings

System successfully bends stiff metal wires in 3D

Planner generates feasible sequences and robot motions

Approach outperforms previous force-based methods

Abstract

This paper presents a combined task and motion planner for a robot arm to carry out 3D metal wire curving tasks by collaborating with a bending machine. We assume a collaborative robot that is safe to work in a human environment but has a weak payload to bend objects with large stiffness, and developed a combined planner for the robot to use a bending machine. Our method converts a 3D curve to a bending set and generates the feasible bending sequence, machine usage, robotic grasp poses, and pick-and-place arm motion considering the combined task and motion level constraints. Compared with previous deformable linear object shaping work that relied on forces provided by robotic arms, the proposed method is suitable for the material with high stiffness. We evaluate the system using different tasks. The results show that the proposed system is flexible and robust to generate robotic motion to corporate with the designed bending machine.