Parts Orienting with Shape Uncertainty
Proceedings of the 1998 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and
Automation, Leuven, Belgium, May 1998.
Srinivas Akella and Matthew T. Mason
Abstract
Parts manufactured to tolerances have shape variations. Most work
in robotic manipulation assumes that part shape does not
vary. Orienting devices such as bowl feeders frequently fail due to
variations in part shape. In this paper we develop techniques to
orient parts with shape uncertainty. We present a shape uncertainty
model and describe the nondeterminism in parts orienting that arises
from shape uncertainty. We characterize a class of parts that can be
reliably oriented with sensor-based and sensorless orienting plans
under shape uncertainty. We present implemented planners that
generate orienting plans for the entire variational class of part
shapes given a nominal part shape and shape uncertainty bounds. We
describe experiments to demonstrate generated plans and outline issues
for future work.