Motion planning and task execution using potential occupancy envelopes
AssigneeVeo Robotics, Inc.
InventorsScott Denenberg, Clara Vu, Patrick Sobalvarro, Alberto Moel
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
Spatial regions potentially occupied by a robot (or other machinery) or portion thereof and a human operator during performance of all or a defined portion of a task or an application are computationally estimated. These “potential occupancy envelopes” (POEs) may be based on the states (e.g., the current and expected positions, velocities, accelerations, geometry and/or kinematics) of the robot and the human operator. Once the POEs of human operators in the workspace are established, they can be used to guide or revise motion planning for task execution.
Claims12
A safety system for enforcing safe operation of machinery performing an activity in a three-dimensional (3D) workspace, the system comprising:
- a computer memory for storing a model of the machinery and its permitted movements and a task specification;
- and
- a processor configured to:
- computationally generate a 3D spatial representation of the workspace;
- identify a computational representation of a 3D region of the workspace corresponding to (i) space occupied or potentially occupied by a human within the workspace augmented by a 3D envelope around the human corresponding to anticipated movements of the human within the workspace during performance of the specified task and (ii) a protective separation distance;
- update the computational representation at intervals no greater than a worst-case time required to bring the machinery to a safe state or a stopping time of the machinery in a direction toward the 3D envelope around the human;
- computationally generate a motion plan comprising a plurality of different trajectories of the machinery to perform the task;
- assign a cost value to each of the trajectories based at least in part on relative likelihood among trajectories that human movement within the workspace will alter the 3D region during execution of the trajectory;
- select one of the trajectories based at least in part on the cost values assigned to the trajectories;
- and
- cause the machinery to execute the selected trajectory and perform the specified task without entering the 3D region and/or violating the protective separation distance.
A method of enforcing safe operation of machinery performing an activity in a three-dimensional (3D) workspace, the method comprising the steps of:
- computationally generating a 3D spatial representation of the workspace;
- identifying a computational representation of a 3D region of the workspace corresponding to (i) space occupied or potentially occupied by a human within the workspace augmented by a 3D envelope around the human corresponding to anticipated movements of the human within the workspace during performance of the specified task and (ii) a protective separation distance;
- updating the computational representation at intervals no greater than a worst-case time required to bring the machinery to a safe state or a stopping time of the machinery in a direction toward the 3D envelope around the human;
- computationally generating a motion plan comprising a plurality of different trajectories of the machinery to perform the task;
- assigning a cost value to each of the trajectories based at least in part on relative likelihood among trajectories that human movement within the workspace will alter the 3D region during execution of the trajectory;
- selecting one of the trajectories based at least in part on the cost values assigned to the trajectories;
- and
- causing the machinery to execute the selected trajectory and perform the specified task without entering the 3D region and/or violating the protective separation distance.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.