Contact State Space: Automatic Generation, Reasoning, and Search

在许多机器人操作任务中，尤其是装配任务中，为了减少不确定性，接触物体的运动是常见的，甚至是期望的。处理接触运动的一个重要工具是关于接触状态的推理，这是本项目的重点。具体地说，本研究有两个主要目标：(1)研究离散接触状态和状态转移的适当表示；(2)研究根据接触状态转移自动规划接触运动的标准和技术。第一个主要研究目标是，尽管相关研究提出了表示多面体离散接触状态的各种方法，但缺乏基于某些重要标准定义/表示接触状态和状态转移的最佳方法(S)，例如：(I)描述/表示状态转移有多容易，以及(Ii)区分相邻状态有多容易。从自动生成接触状态空间的需要来看，第一个准则是重要的。第二个标准是解决表示的粒度，从存在不确定性的情况下自动识别接触状态的需要来看，这一标准尤其重要。第二个主要研究目标与第一个目标密切相关，特别是针对柔性装配任务。在追求这两个目标的过程中，理论概念将通过实验实现和执行来验证。这将导致对最常见的装配任务的物理原理有一个基本的了解，并将这一知识与能够在柔性装配中执行这些任务的计划过程定量地联系起来。这一合作努力预计将导致显著影响总体上自动装配的持续运动计划的设计、评估、生成和执行的结果。

In many robotic manipulation tasks, especially assembly tasks, motion of objects in contact is common and even desired in order to reduce uncertainties. An important tool in dealing with motion in contact is reasoning about contact states, which is the focus of this project. Specifically, this research has two major goals: (1) to investigate proper representation of discrete contact states and state transitions, and (2) to investigate criteria and techniques for automatic planning of contact motions in terms of contact state transitions. The first major research goal responds to the fact that although various ways of representing discrete contact states for polyhedra have been proposed in related research, there is a lack of general and systematic investigation on the best way(s) of defining/representing contact states and state transitions based on certain important criteria, such as (i) how easy it is to describe/represent state transitions, and (ii) how easy it is to distinguish adjacent states. The first criterion is important from the need of automatic generation of contact state space. The second criterion, addressing the granularity of representation, is particularly important from the need of automatic identification of contact states in the presence of uncertainties. The second major research goal is closely related to the first one and is particularly aimed at flexible assembly tasks. In pursuing both goals, theoretical concepts will be validated by experimental implementations and executions. This will result in a fundamental understanding of the physics of the most common assembly tasks and relate this knowledge quantitatively to the planning processes which can perform them in flexible assembly. This collaborative effort is expected to lead to results that will significantly impact the design, evaluation, generation and execution of conta ct-motion plans for automatic assembly in general.