Method of robotic system dynamic velocity modification

A method for adaptive robot velocity modification, said method executed on one or more computing devices and comprising:

• providing a robot reference path which defines a robot movement for a task to be performed by the robot;
• providing obstacle data characterizing obstacles in a robot workspace;
• performing a robot velocity modification calculation when indicated by the obstacle data, including determining a joint speed limit for each joint in the robot, and calculating a robot slowdown ratio as a minimum value, among all of the joints, of the joint speed limit divided by a maximum speed for each joint, where the robot velocity modification calculation includes an optimization computation having an objective function which minimizes deviation of a computed robot motion from a desired robot motion and an inequality constraint which dictates that a magnitude of a computed joint speed is less than or equal to the joint speed limit for each joint in the robot, and the joint speed limit for each joint is computed using an equation including a robot stop time and predefined maximum values of robot joint velocity, acceleration and jerk, and the robot stop time is computed as a function of the obstacle data and robot capability data;
• computing a commanded robot motion using the robot slowdown ratio and the desired robot motion;
• using the robot slowdown ratio to compute a new position along the robot reference path, and using the new position along the robot reference path to compute the desired robot motion for a next robot control cycle;
• and
• providing the commanded robot motion to a controller module which controls motions of the robot.

A system for adaptive robot velocity modification, said system comprising:

• means for parameterizing a robot reference path from a set of interpolation points to a continuous reference path defined as a function of a path length;
• means for providing obstacle data characterizing obstacles in a robot workspace;
• means for performing a robot velocity modification calculation when indicated by the obstacle data, including determining a joint speed limit for each joint in the robot, and calculating a robot slowdown ratio as a minimum value, among all of the joints, of the joint speed limit divided by a maximum speed for each joint;
• means for computing a commanded robot motion using the robot slowdown ratio and a desired robot motion;
• means for using the robot slowdown ratio to compute a new position along a robot reference path, and using the new position along the robot reference path to compute the desired robot motion for a next robot control cycle;
• and
• a robot in communication with the means for computing a commanded robot motion, said robot executing the commanded robot motion.