Operation planning system for robot

A robot operation planning system for planning the grasp and movement of an object by a hand of a robot, said system comprising:

• means providing data representing a three-dimensional model of the environment in which the object is disposed, including any obstacles surrounding the object in the environment, geometric data representing the shape of the object, and data representing an initial state and a goal state of the object on a table;
• stable position calculating means connected to receive the geometric data for determining, from the data, all possible stable orientations in which the object can be stably placed on the table, and calculating intermediate locations of the object in the stable orientation during movement from the initial state to the goal state such that the robot hand can operate at the intermediate states without being affected by obstacles on the table, said stable position calculating means providing data representing the calculated intermediate states;
• state transition path searching means connected to receive data representing the model for searching for a state transition path where the object is transferred from the initial state to the goal state and via at least one of the intermediate states if necessary;
• and
• regrasp location determining means connected to receive the data representing the calculated intermediate states for determining a location for regrasping the object when the object is not directly moved from the initial state to the goal state, and is temporarily placed and regrasped at an intermediate states, the regrasp location being determined by preferentially searching for a location on the table which has a maximum distance from surrounding obstacles thereon.