The robotic interception of moving objects in industrial settings: Strategy development and experiment

A novel active prediction, planning, and execution (APPE) system is presented herein for the robotic interception of moving objects. The primary feature of the proposed APPE system is the ability to intercept the object at an optimal rendezvous point, anywhere along its predicted trajectory, within the robot's workspace. For the interception of objects in industrial settings, the motion of which allows long-term predictability, this feature is a significant improvement over earlier APPE systems. These could only select a rendezvous point among a few nonoptimal interception points considered. An APPE system's objective is simply to move the robot to the earliest pregrasping location. A fine-motion tracking algorithm can take over the motion control at that point, utilizing proximity sensors mounted on the robot's end-effector. This approach eliminates the necessity of tracking the motion of the object, as required by conventional tracking-based techniques, where the distance between the robot's end-effector and the object is reduced; continuously. In this paper, the proposed APPE system is first briefly introduced, and its individual modules are thereafter discussed in detail, Simulation and experimental results are presented in support of the developed optimal-interception strategy.