Robotic motion planning

A system comprising:

• one or more computers and one or more storage devices storing instructions that are operable, when executed by the one or more computers, to cause the one or more computers to perform operations comprising:
• receiving a request to generate a motion plan comprising a plurality of motions, each motion being defined by one or more joint configurations of a robot in an operating environment;
• performing a motion planning process to generate a motion plan having a nonfunctional motion and a functional motion, including:
• evaluating candidate sequences of nonfunctional joint configurations, each sequence of nonfunctional joint configurations defining a respective nonfunctional motion, including performing a collision checking process on each candidate sequence of nonfunctional joint configurations to determine whether the robot assuming the candidate sequence of nonfunctional joint configurations would cause the robot to contact an object in the working environment,
• discarding candidate sequences of nonfunctional joint configurations that would cause the robot to contact an object in the operating environment,
• evaluating candidate sequences of functional joint configurations from each of one or more remaining candidate sequences of nonfunctional joint configurations that would not cause the robot to contact an object in the working environment, and
• selecting a final candidate nonfunctional motion and a final candidate functional motion;
• and
• providing a motion plan that specifies the robot performing the final candidate nonfunctional motion before the final candidate functional motion.

One or more non-transitory computer storage media encoded with computer program instructions that when executed by one or more computers cause the one or more computers to perform operations comprising:

• receiving a request to generate a motion plan comprising a plurality of motions, each motion being defined by one or more joint configurations of a robot in an operating environment;
• performing a motion planning process to generate a motion plan having a nonfunctional motion and a functional motion, including:
• evaluating candidate sequences of nonfunctional joint configurations, each sequence of nonfunctional joint configurations defining a respective nonfunctional motion, including performing a collision checking process on each candidate sequence of nonfunctional joint configurations to determine whether the robot assuming the candidate sequence of nonfunctional joint configurations would cause the robot to contact an object in the working environment,
• discarding candidate sequences of nonfunctional joint configurations that would cause the robot to contact an object in the operating environment,
• evaluating candidate sequences of functional joint configurations from each of one or more remaining candidate sequences of nonfunctional joint configurations that would not cause the robot to contact an object in the working environment, and
• selecting a final candidate nonfunctional motion and a final candidate functional motion;
• and
• providing a motion plan that specifies the robot performing the final candidate nonfunctional motion before the final candidate functional motion.