Geometric volumes can be used as an intermediate representation for bridging the gap between task planning, with its symbolic preconditions and effects, and motion planning, with its continuous-space geometry. In this work, we use sets of convex polyhedra to represent the boundaries of objects, robot manipulators, and swept volumes of robot motions. We apply efficient algorithms for convex deco...

In this paper, we investigate methods for motion planning for deformable robots. Our framework is based on a probabilistic roadmap planner. As with traditional motion planning, the planner’s goal is to find a valid path for the robot. Unlike typical motion planning, the robot is allowed to change its shape (deform) to avoid collisions as it moves along the path. We propose a two-stage approach....

Research in robot motion planning requires the availability of a simulation environment where to test and validate the theoretic contributions. Nevertheless, PhD programs and graduate studies that include robot motion planning courses usually cover the subject only from a theoretical perspective. Therefore, students aiming to focus their research in this line, face the big challenge of developi...

Elastic bands are proposed as the basis for a new framework to close the gap between global path planning and real-time sensor-based robot control. An elastic band is a deformable collision-free path. The initial shape of the elastic is the free path generated by a planner. Subjected to artificial forces, the elastic band deforms in real time to a short and smooth path that maintains clearance ...

Our work is focused on defining a generic approach for planning landmark based motion. The proposed geometric approach deals with robots of complex kinematic moving in cluttered environment. It aims at providing safe strategy of motion for such constrained conditions. The method consists in selecting automatically the most relevant landmarks along a pre-planned geometric path. It proposes a str...

This paper is devoted to path planning when the safety of the system considered has to be guaranteed in the presence of bounded uncertainty affecting its model. A new path planner addresses this problem by combining Rapidly-exploring Random Trees (RRT) and a set representation of uncertain states. An idealized algorithm is presented first, before a description of one of its possible implementat...

This paper describes the motivation for the development of the HuroCup competition and follows the rule development from its inaugural competition from 2002 to 2015. The history of HuroCup is broken down into its growing phase (2002–2006), a time of explosive growth (2007–2011), and current times. This paper describes the main research focus of HuroCup, the multi-event humanoid robot competitio...

T s s a target itself. Another example is to guard a secured environment, where it is important to be covert as well as overt at the same time, in this way the chances are higher for the robot to see an intruder before the opposite happens. A covert robot may be used as well for hostage rescue, for example by sending an insect size covert robot with a camera to the hostage area to send images t...

This paper is aimed to develop a complete algorithm to determine the robot motion and the scene structure using a monocular vision system. It is based on straight lines and significant points extracted on them. In this way, an agreement between the problems to extract or to match points and the limitations of infinite lines to compute structure and motion is established. Some plentiful geometri...