Saving Time for Object Finding with a Mobile Manipulator Robot in 3-D Environment

Abstract

In this paper, we address the problem ofreducing the time for finding an object. We consider boththe time taken by our software to generate a search planand the expected time to find the object when the planis executed. The object is sought with a 7 degree offreedom mobile manipulator robot with an “eye-in-hand”sensor. The sensor is limited in both range and fieldof view. We propose two main strategies: 1) to coordinatethe motion of robot’s degrees of freedom optimizingonly those most relevant for the task, and 2) to repaira previously computed plan whenever the environmentchanges locally. We have implemented all our algorithmsand present simulation results in realistic environments.