Real-time path planning for robot arms

Abstract

This thesis presents two new methods for the automatic programming of robots, which were developed at the University of Durham.A model of the robot and its surroundings is held in the computer memory in a form which can be accessed quickly by the path generation algorithm.Information is fed to the computer which defines a task for the robot to perform.The path generation algorithm then calculates the coordinates for the movement of the robot, avoiding obstacles.Finally, the information is down-loaded into the robot control computer in its own language.An important feature of the method is the high speed of calculation and data transfer, which is designed for real-time operation.The world model is represented as a collection of spheres, some overlapping, vi 11. References 12. Appendices A. Calculating the volumes of spheres modelling a unit cube B. To find robot paths between spheres 161 C. Mainrpf program