Toward human-like real-time manipulation: From perception to motion planning

Human-like behavior is crucial for intelligent service robots that are to perform versatile tasks in day to day life. In this paper, an integrated approach to human-like manipulation is presented, which addresses realtime three-dimensional (3-D) workspace modeling and accessibility analysis for motion planning. The 3-D workspace modeling uses three main principles: identification of global geometric features, substitution of recognized known objects by corresponding solid models in the database and multi-resolution representation of unknown obstacles as required by the task at hand. Accessibility analysis is done through visibility tests. It complements and accelerates general motion planning. The experimental results demonstrate that the human-like behavior-oriented methods are sufficiently fast and robust to model 3-D workspace, and to plan and execute tasks for robotic manipulative applications.