Trajectory planning is one of the most important problems in robotics. It refers to generation of position commands, velocity, and acceleration of all degrees of freedom of a robot.
Pick-and-place trajectory planning is finding a smooth and continuous trajectory from the starting position to the desired terminal position within the workspace of a robot.
Many studies have been conducted for effective trajectory planning of a robot. However, previous studies revealed some drawbacks in the aspect of minimization of workspace, especially the equations of velocity and acceleration/deceleration with little information of the path, and therefore, the equations were not directly related to the geometry of the generated path.
To overcome such shortcomings, Choe Myong Song, a researcher at the Faculty of Mechanical Science and Technology, has developed an asymmetric bisect elliptical trajectory planning with minimum workspace suited to the geometry of the real-time path for pick-and-place operation in which both the picking points and placing points are changed randomly in the workspace.
First, he proposed an optimal asymmetric bisect elliptical path with two vertical straight line segments and a method of generating it. Then, he presented a method of generating the optimal motion profile suited to geometry of the elliptical path based on the radius of curvature. Finally, he conducted a simulation to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method.
He drew the following conclusions.
The proposed motion profile based on the radius of curvature of the path is pretty suited to the geometry of the optimal elliptical path, and therefore, its velocity, acceleration and jerk are continuous and very smooth, which enables smoother pick-and-place robot operation. In addition, the proposed trajectory planning approach reduces a cycle period and ensures smoothness of working of robot actuators and real-time transhipping.
For further details, please refer to his paper “An Approach for Elliptical Trajectory Planning with Vertical Straight Line Segments of Pick-and-Place Robot Operation with Height Clearance” in “Mathematical Problems in Engineering” (SCI).
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