AN OPTIMAL CONTROL APPROACH TO STABLE-PUSHING PLANNING

In this paper, we study the manipulation planning problem for an ability-limited robot. The goal of manipulation is to push an object from an initial configuration to a goal configuration. The robot is restricted to perform only two kinds of motion in the plane. One is pushing the object forward with a constant and fixed velocity; The other one is rotating the object along a fixed-radius circle with a constant angular velocity. By the aid of optimal control theory, we prove that the optimal trajectory consists at most two switchings between these two actions. A planning method has been implemented to find the optimal trajectory. Manipulation examples are provided to demonstrate the proposed manipulation method.