A Complete Method for Workspace Boundary Determination on General Structure Manipulators

Bohigas, O.; Manubens, Montserrat; Ros, Lluís

doi:10.1109/tro.2012.2196311

Cited by 60 publications

(28 citation statements)

References 40 publications

(46 reference statements)

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“…The former case is chosen for its simplicity, to illustrate and visualize the method in three dimensions, and the latter shows the method's performance on a real application of considerable complexity. Note that in all cases we make no use of closed-form parameterizations of C. Also, despite the singularity locus and the workspace are shown for reference in the figures (derived using [24,29] and [30] in our case), explicit knowledge of such sets is not used by the planner in its computations. All results reported have been obtained from an implementation in C of the method available in [31], executed on a MacBook Pro equipped with a 2.66 GHz Intel Core i7 processor.…”

Section: Illustrative Examplesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Planning Singularity-Free Paths on Closed-Chain Manipulators

et al. 2013

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Abstract-This paper provides an algorithm for computing singularity-free paths on closed-chain manipulators. Given two non-singular configurations of the manipulator, the method attempts to connect them through a path that maintains a minimum clearance with respect to the singularity locus at all points, which guarantees the controllability of the manipulator everywhere along the path. The method can be applied to non-redundant manipulators of general architecture, and it is resolution-complete. It always returns a path whenever one exists at a given resolution, or determines path non-existence otherwise. The strategy relies on defining a smooth manifold that maintains a one-to-one correspondence with the singularity-free C-space of the manipulator, and on using a higher-dimensional continuation technique to explore this manifold systematically from one configuration, until the second configuration is found. If desired, the method can also be used to compute an exhaustive atlas of the whole singularity-free component reachable from a given configuration, which is useful to rapidly resolve subsequent planning queries within such component, or to visualize the singularity-free workspace of any of the manipulator coordinates.Examples are included that demonstrate the performance of the method on illustrative situations.

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Section: Illustrative Examplesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Planning Singularity-Free Paths on Closed-Chain Manipulators

et al. 2013

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“…These are loci of configurations where problematic losses of control or dexterity arise [6,7]. They also reveal the boundaries of the task and joint workspaces, and all motion barriers that may be encountered in their interior [4]. The ability to compute these loci is thus essential, not only to anticipate possible problems during robot operation, but also to provide valuable information to the robot designer.…”

Section: Branch-and-prune Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The CUIK Suite: Analyzing the Motion Closed-Chain Multibody Systems

Porta

Ros

Bohigas

et al. 2014

IEEE Robot. Automat. Mag.

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Many situations in Robotics require the analysis of the motions of complex multibody systems. These are sets of articulated bodies arising in a variety of devices, including parallel manipulators, multifingered hands, or reconfigurable mechanisms, but they appear in other domains too, as mechanical models of molecular compounds or nanostructures. Closed kinematic chains arise frequently in such systems, either due to their morphology, or to geometric or contact constraints to fulfill during operation, giving rise to configuration spaces of an intricate structure. Despite appearing very often in practice, there is a lack of general software tools to analyze and represent such configuration spaces. Existing packages are either oriented to open chain systems, or to specific robot types, which hinders the analysis and development of innovative manipulators. This paper describes the CUIK suite, a software toolbox for the kinematic analysis of general multibody systems. The implemented tools can isolate the valid configurations, determine the motion range of the whole multibody system or of some of its parts, detect singular configurations leading to control or dexterity issues, or find collision-and singularity-free paths between configurations. The toolbox has applications in robot design and programming, and it is the result of several years of research and development within the Kinematics and Robot Design group at IRI, Barcelona. It is available under GPLv3 license from

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“…These are loci of critical configurations where control or dexterity losses arise, leading to malfunction or a breakage of the structure [25]. These loci provide the boundaries of the task and joint workspaces too, and all possible motion barriers within them [3]. By adequately defining the equations passed to the solver, the CUIK suite can isolate any of such loci [3,5,2], becoming the first general tool able to do so, up to the authors' knowledge.…”

Section: Branch-and-prune Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

An Open-Source Toolbox for Motion Analysis of Closed-Chain Mechanisms

Porta

Ros

Bohigas

et al. 2013

Computational Kinematics

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Many situations in Robotics require an effective analysis of the motions of a closed-chain mechanism. Despite appearing very often in practice (e.g. in parallel manipulators, reconfigurable robots, or molecular compounds), there is a lack of general tools to effectively analyze the complex configuration spaces of such systems. This paper describes the CUIK suite, an open-source toolbox for motion analysis of general closed-chain mechanisms. The package can determine the motion range of the whole mechanism or of some of its parts, detect singular configurations leading to control or dexterity issues, or find collision-and singularity-free paths between given configurations. The toolbox is the result of several years of research and development within the Kinematics and Robot Design group at IRI, Barcelona, and is available under GPLv3 license from http://www.iri.upc.edu/cuik.

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A Complete Method for Workspace Boundary Determination on General Structure Manipulators

Cited by 60 publications

References 40 publications

Planning Singularity-Free Paths on Closed-Chain Manipulators

Planning Singularity-Free Paths on Closed-Chain Manipulators

The CUIK Suite: Analyzing the Motion Closed-Chain Multibody Systems

An Open-Source Toolbox for Motion Analysis of Closed-Chain Mechanisms

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