Time-Optimal Transport of Loosely Placed Liquid Filled Cups along Prescribed Paths

TL;DR

This paper presents a method for time-optimal transportation of liquid-filled cups along specified paths by incorporating sloshing dynamics into the control model to minimize spillage and optimize trajectory planning.

Contribution

It introduces a novel optimal control framework that accounts for liquid sloshing dynamics to achieve time-efficient and spill-free transport of liquid containers.

Findings

Successful incorporation of sloshing dynamics into the control model

Reduced spillage during rapid transport of liquid-filled cups

Efficient trajectory planning for loosely placed objects

Abstract

Handling loosely placed objects with robotic manipulators is a difficult task from the point of view of trajectory planning and control. This becomes even more challenging when the object to be handled is a container filled with liquid. This paper addresses the task of transporting a liquid-filled cup placed on a tray along a prescribed path in shortest time. The objective is to minimize swapping, thus avoiding spillage of the fluid. To this end, the sloshing dynamics is incorporated into the dynamic model used within the optimal control problem formulation. The optimization problem is solved using a direct multiple shooting approach.