Collision free manipulation for teleoperated assembly tasks

A solution to the problem of collision free manipulation during simulation and execution of teleoperated assembly tasks is suggested in this paper. The task, which is realized by a teleoperated robotic system, is specified by the operator towards a virtual environment. In order to relieve the operator of some operational constraints, the approach is based on a shared control architecture that allows to establish different cooperation modes between the operator and the control system. At the top level, the operator specifies the strategy (in terms of assembly steps, objects to be manipulated, motions to be performed) followed during the task. At the bottom level, a local control has in charge the real-time collision avoidance and the local path-planning when collisions occur. Collision avoidance relies first on a predictive and dynamic collision detection technique which finds its essence in combining graphics hardware capabilities and simplified geometric representations (oriented bounding box) associated with dynamic objects of the environment. Secondly, predicted collisions are reported to a local path planner that generates new collision-free paths.