Using Partial Sensor Information to Orient Parts
To appear in the International Journal of Robotics Research, accepted
September 1998.
Srinivas Akella and Matthew T. Mason
Abstract
Parts orienting, the process of bringing parts in initially
unknown orientations to a goal orientation, is an important aspect of
automated assembly. The most common industrial orienting systems are
vibratory bowl feeders, which use the geometry and mass properties of
parts to orient them. Bowl feeders rely on a sequence of mechanical
operations, and typically do not use sensors. In this paper, we
describe the use of partial information sensors along with a sequence
of pushing operations to eliminate uncertainty in the orientations
of parts. We characterize the shorter execution lengths of
sensor-based plans and the ability of a single plan to orient and
recognize multiple part shapes. Further, we show that differences in
part shape do not always lead to differences in part behavior under
linear normal pushes. We have implemented several planners and
demonstrated generated plans in experiments.