Motion safety and constraints compatibility for multibody robots

Sébastien Rubrecht (1, 2) , Vincent Padois (1) , Philippe Bidaud (1, 3) , Michel de Broissia (2) , Max da Silva Simoes (4)

1 ISIR - Institut des Systèmes Intelligents et de Robotique
2 Bouygues Travaux Publics
3 SYROCO - Systèmes robotiques Conception et Commande
4 LIST (CEA) - Laboratoire d'Intégration des Systèmes et des Technologies

In this paper we propose a methodology to ensure safe behaviors of multibody robots in reactive control frameworks. The permanent satisfaction of constraints being insufficient to ensure safety, this approach focuses on the constraints expression: the compatibility between these constraints is studied, and safe alternatives are ensured when compatibility cannot be established. Case studies involving obstacles, joint position, velocity and acceleration limits illustrates the approach. A particular method is developed to take full advantage of a smooth state of the art avoidance techniques (Faverjon and Tournassoud in Proceedings of the 1987 IEEE international conference on robotics and automation, pp. 1152-1159, 1987) while maintaining safety. Experiments involving a 6-DOF manipulator operating in a cluttered environment illustrate the reliability of the approach and validate the expected performances.

Keywords: Robotic constraints; Constraints compliant control; Motion safety; Multibody robot safety; Safe reactive control

Domains: Robotics [cs.RO]

Sébastien Rubrecht, Vincent Padois, Philippe Bidaud, Michel de Broissia, Max da Silva Simoes. Motion safety and constraints compatibility for multibody robots. Autonomous Robots, 2012, 32 (3), pp.333-349. ⟨10.1007/s10514-011-9264-x⟩. ⟨hal-00719855⟩