Time-optimal rendezvous planning for pick-and-place task sharing

We propose a mode-sequential task sharing-for co-operating robot manipulators carrying out a pick-and-place task sharing in a common workspace. As the name implies, in this mode, each individual robot completes part of the same task. The first manipulator picks up the part(s) and directly passes it over to the second manipulator (like a baton being passed from one runner to the other in a relay race), which completes the task by placing the part at its desired goal location. The point at which the transition, i.e., passing over the part, occurs is the rendezvous point. We analyse this approach to minimize the total task time subject to dynamic constraints of the robots. A key step is to determine the optimal rendezvous point (ORP) that results in the optimal task time. We present an algorithm to determine the ORP and show that our approach results in a speed up by a factor of more than two over the conventional single manipulator case