Automatic motion planning within a manufacturing system

In the complex environment of a manufacturing system, tasks may be dynamically reconfigured. In this situation robots and machinery need to plan their movements automatically to avoid obstacles and rendezvous with changing target points. In this paper the rational behind the development of a novel motion planning system is described. This system takes into account both kinematic and dynamic constraints. The methods are applied to the complex case of an open kinematic chain. Two aspects of the motion planning problem are reviewed and discussed in detail, that is to suitably represent the machinery and obstacles and to derive suitable trajectories for the actuators. The detection of obstacles is described in various texts, including [Sanders,1990 (PhD Dissertation, Portsmouth)]. Finally the paper discusses the optimization of the machinery motions using the novel methods.