A least-commitment approach to intelligent robotic assembly

The authors propose a robotic assembly system that is based on the least-commitment principle, in which the successive stages proceeding from planning to execution become progressively more specific. The system is partitioned into an offline automatic programming system and an online execution manager. The framework and objectives are presented, followed by an overview of the global system. The submodules of a system that has actually executed a simple pick/place task are described. Some conclusions and perspectives are outlined.<>