Autonomous Robotic Task and Motion Planning for Flexible Manufacturing

AUTONOMOUS ROBOTIC TASK AND MOTION PLANNING FOR FLEXIBLE MANUFACTURING (APTREE+)

Flexible production is essential for competitive automotive and construction manufacturing due to frequent model updates, new processes, and increasing consumer demand for customization. Robots play a significant role in achieving this flexibility but using them requires careful planning of their task sequences and movement. 

In practice, however, task and motion planning for robots often relies on inflexible or manual processes. This inflexible planning is labor-intensive, error-prone, and requires manual adjustments even for minor changes in the production line.
To efficiently manufacture diverse products, robots must be enabled to autonomously plan, adapt, and execute their tasks and movements.

APTree+ envisions a future of manufacturing where robots are not confined to fixed stations but instead adapt autonomously to changing environments, even when tasks cannot be fully pre-planned. The goal of this project is to develop methods for multi-agent robot planning that dynamically select and coordinate planners for task re-planning and execution across multiple robots.

This project will provide automated robot planning methods that are adaptable and scalable, regardless of the number of robots involved or the complexity of the planning scenario.
For construction companies, this translates into increased production flexibility, reduced manual engineering effort and lower overall operating costs.

PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR
Prof. Dr. Thomas Wortmann
Institute for Computational Design and Construction (ICD), Department for Computing in Architecture (ICD/CA)

PARTICIPATING RESEARCHER
Prof. Dr.-Ing. Net. habil. Andreas Wortmann
Institute for Control Engineering of Machine Tools and Manufacturing Units (ISW)

RESEARCHER
Shermin Sherkat (ICD/CA)

PARTNER
Karlsruhe Institute of Technology

FUNDING
Innovation Campus Mobility (ICM), BUP65