Task Planning for Robotic Excavation

Abstract

We propose a methodology to automatically generate plans for a robot excavator like a bucket loader or a backhoe. The task is formulated as one of constrained optimization in an action space that is spanned by the parameters of a prototypical digging plan. We show how geometric and force constraints are imposed on the action space to build the set of feasible plans, and discuss methods to optimize a cost function within this set. We discuss recent simulation results that demonstrate this method in action.