Intelligent real time reactive motion planning for multiple robotic configurations

This paper presents a hierarchical control system which enables the collision free operation of a multiple robot workcell. The method assumes that the motions to be performed are known beforehand, and initial collision free paths are planned offline. A monitor then tracks the actual robot motions. Any deviation from the preplanned path may result in a collision situation thus a collision detection algorithm is activated. Prediction of a collision situation results in the invocation of an intelligent reactive motion planner which replans the paths to avoid the collision situation. The algorithms associated with the monitor are presented and their application discussed