Real-time obstacle avoidance and motion coordination in a multi-robot workcell

The novel framework of elastic strips allows real-time obstacle avoidance and implicit motion coordination for multiple robots in a shared workspace. It augments motion plans with a reactive component allowing the avoidance of unpredictably moving obstacles. The obstacle avoidance behavior is task-dependent so that task behavior is not suspended to avoid obstacles. The motion coordination behavior of robots can also be specified in a task-dependent manner. Motion coordination can be achieved by regarding other robots as obstacles or by real-time modification of the trajectory time parametrization. Multi-robot workcells can be programmed by planning the trajectories of all robots independently. Obstacle avoidance and motion coordination for the resulting trajectories are performed using elastic strips. The framework has been applied to the simulation of a multi-robot workcell.