Tracking and grasping moving objects using reflex behaviour

Robots which function in an unstructured dynamic environment require the integration of advanced sensing and computing technologies. In the case of tracking and grasping a moving object, rapid position information is determined by interpreting a stream of sensor data, and the decisions of how to move the robot and when to close the gripper must be made. This paper describes a robot system which is capable of consistently tracking and grasping an object moving in two degrees of freedom at velocities of up to 11 cm/s and accelerations of 25 cm/s/sup 2/. The manipulator is controlled using state-space lookup tables, which are generated off-line and are accessed according to the result of the range data interpretation. The control of the manipulator is tightly coupled to the data from the range sensor, resulting in unplanned motion referred to as reflex behaviour.<>