Robot Arm Posture Planning for Non-Contact Obstacle Avoidance
Find Innovative SolutionsGenerate Solutions
Solution Overview
Problem
Existing robot arm collision avoidance systems rely on contact-based methods, which can lead to injuries or damage due to the need for physical contact with obstacles before triggering a stop operation, and only provide limited protection for the end effector rather than the entire arm.
Innovation Solution
A non-contact obstacle avoidance method for robot arms involving modeling, collecting and evaluating coordinates, establishing an occupancy function, obtaining control parameters, and finding an obstacle avoidance posture to prevent collisions, utilizing a database and computation control module to control the robot arm's movement and avoid obstacles.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If contact-based anti-collision methods (resistance-current limiting or pressure sensors) are used, then the robot arm can detect obstacles through physical contact, but the person or product is already injured or damaged before the robot arm stops
Solution Approach 1:
The patent performs preliminary action by pre-calculating and storing all possible working postures of the robot arm in a database before actual operation. During runtime, the system quickly evaluates whether the current posture collides with obstacles by comparing against pre-computed data, enabling obstacle avoidance before physical contact occurs, thus preventing injury or damage while maintaining reliability
2Reliability
If smart skin with pressure sensors is used to cover the robot arm surface, then collision detection capability is improved, but the overall weight of the robot arm increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent replaces the mechanical sensor-based detection system (smart skin with pressure sensors) with a computational approach. Instead of using physical sensors distributed across the robot arm surface, the system uses pre-calculated posture data and occupancy function evaluation to detect potential collisions, thereby eliminating the need for additional sensors and reducing the overall weight while maintaining collision detection capability
3Reliability
If smart skin with pressure sensors is used to cover the robot arm surface, then collision detection is enabled, but the cost increases and sensor deployment becomes complicated
Solution Approach 1:
The patent replaces the complex mechanical sensor deployment system with a software-based computational model. Instead of physically installing numerous pressure sensors across the robot arm surface, the system uses mathematical modeling to represent the robot arm geometry and pre-calculates posture occupancy, significantly reducing device complexity and eliminating sensor deployment complications while maintaining collision detection reliability
Data Source
AI summary
An obstacle avoidance method for a robot arm is provided, including a modeling step, a collecting and evaluating coordinates step, an obtaining control parameter step, an establishing an occupation function step, and a finding an obstacle avoiding posture step. The present invention pre-stores the data obtained in performing the modeling step, the step of collecting and evaluating coordinates, the step of obtaining control parameter, and the step of establishing the occupation function into a database, thereby allowing the robot arm to quickly evaluate whether a collision behavior will occur in subsequent execution of a task. If a collision will occur, the robot arm executes the step of the finding the obstacle avoiding posture to dodge obstacles. The invention uses a non-contact approach for anti-collision design, which can improve the shortcomings faced by the existing contact type anti-collision design.