Page 124 - Concise Encyclopedia of Robotics

Fine Motion Planning
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Field of view (FOV) Response y x

FINE MOTION PLANNING
Fine motion planning refers to the scheme used by a robot to get into exactly
the right position.
Suppose a personal robot is told to switch on the light in a hallway.
The light switch is on the wall. The robot controller has a computer map
of the house, and this includes the location of the hallway light switch.
The robot proceeds to the general location of the switch,and reaches for the
wall. How does it know exactly where to find the switch, and how to
position its gripper precisely so that it will move the toggle on the switch?
One method is to incorporate robot vision, such as an eye-in-hand
system. This allows the robot to recognize the shape of the toggle and
guide itself accordingly. Another method involves the use of tactile
sensing, so the end effector can “feel” along the wall in a manner similar
to the way a human would find and actuate the switch with eyes closed.
Yet another scheme might involve a highly precise, scaled-down epipolar
navigation scheme. Compare GROSS MOTION PLANNING.
See also COMPUTER MAP, EPIPOLAR NAVIGATION, EYE-IN-HAND SYSTEM, TACTILE SENSING,
and VISION SYSTEM.
FIRE-PROTECTION ROBOT
One role for which robots are especially well suited is fire fighting. If all fire
fighters were robots, there would be no risk to human life in this occupa-
tion.Robots can be built to withstand far higher temperatures than humans
can tolerate. Robots do not suffer from smoke inhalation. The main chal-
lenge is to program the robots to exercise judgment as keen as that of
human beings, in a wide variety of situations.

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