2013, Feyeux, Nelson, Landry, Chantal

An algorithm to detect collisions between robots moving along given trajectories is presented. The method is a combination of the adaptive dynamic collision checking developed by Schwarzer et al. and Lin and Cannys algorithm, which computes efficiently the distance between two polyhedra. The resulting algorithm is part of a global model that computes the optimal task assignment, sequencing and kinodynamic motion planning in a robotic work-cell.

2013, Landry, Chantal, Welz, Wolfgang, Henrion, René, Hömberg, Dietmar, Skutella, Martin

A workcell composed of a workpiece and several welding robots is considered. We are interested in minimizing the makespan in the workcell. Hence, one needs i) to assign tasks between the robots, ii) to do the sequencing of the tasks for each robot and iii) to compute the fastest collisionfree paths between the tasks. Up to now, task assignment and path-planning were always handled separately, the former being a typical Vehicle Routing Problem whereas the later is modelled using an optimal control problem. In this paper, we present a complete algorithm which combines discrete optimization techniques with collision detection and optimal control problems efficiently