Robot task and movement planning

A description is given of a system of robot action and motion planning, called task planner, that would transform task-level specification into manipulator-level specification. The output of the task planner would be a robot motion program to achieve the desired fine state of task when executed in the specified initial state. The program is composed of graph actions, several kinds of sequences of time trajectories of robot movements and command to assess and use sensory information. To accomplish this transformation, the task planner uses a description of the objects being manipulated, the task environment (called a work scene), the robot carrying out the task, the initial state of the environment and the desired final state. A discussion is presented of the operations planner which provides the fundamental plan for robot-action generation of the path planner which provides collision-free robot movement planning and the trajectory planner.<<ETX>>