Collision-Free Motion Generation Based on Stochastic Optimization and Composite Signed Distance Field Networks of Articulated Robot

Safe robot motion generation is critical for practical applications from manufacturing to homes. In this work, we proposed a stochastic optimization-based motion generation method to generate collision-free and time-optimal motion for the articulated robot represented by composite signed distance field (SDF) networks. First, we propose composite SDF networks to learn the SDF for articulated robots. The learned composite SDF networks combined with the kinematics of the robot allow for quick and accurate estimates of the minimum distance between the robot and obstacles in a batch fashion. Then, a stochastic optimization-based trajectory planning algorithm generates a spatial-optimized and collision-free trajectory offline with the learned composite SDF networks. This stochastic trajectory planner is formulated as a Bayesian Inference problem with a time-normalized Gaussian process prior and exponential likelihood function. The Gaussian process prior can enforce initial and goal position constraints in Configuration Space. Besides, it can encode the correlation of waypoints in time series. The likelihood function aims at encoding task-related cost terms, such as collision avoidance, trajectory length penalty, boundary avoidance, etc. The kernel updating strategies combined with model-predictive path integral (MPPI) is proposed to solve the maximum a posteriori inference problems. Lastly, we integrate the learned composite SDF networks into the trajectory planning algorithm and apply it to a Franka robot. The simulation and experiment results validate the effectiveness of the method.