Task and motion planning using mixed integer linear programming for solving fetch-and-carry tasks by a mobile manipulator

Abstract

This manuscript describes a TAsk and Motion Planning (TAMP) method for mobile manipulators. We focus on fetch-and-carry tasks, and we aim to simultaneously generate both a sequence of actions and a motion sequence for each action. The number of factors to be considered in solving such a problem, and the interactions among them are complex due to the multifaceted characteristics of mobile manipulation. As a result, straightforwardly performing simultaneous TAMP may require a significant amount of processing time. Therefore, we reduce the complexity of the problem by formulating fetch-and-carry planning for a Mixed Integer Linear Programming (MILP) problem. The proposed method can obtain the sequence of actions and the movement of the mobile manipulator in less than one second in many cases. The effectiveness of the proposed method is verified in environments in which delivery objects and obstacles are placed in various patterns, using a robot with an omnidirectional mobile platform and a serial link manipulator.