Cartesian Motion Planning & Task Programming with CRAFTSMAN

I. INTRODUCTION Deploying multi-degree-of-freedom robot systems in real-world environments will require motion and task planning software for manipulation that is robust, flexible, and easy to use by non-PhD users. While many robot manufacturers provide custom, proprietary solutions for their systems, there is no industry standard that can be used on different platforms, can quickly adjust to new tasks or environments, or can be used effectively by both robotics researchers and trained experts. While open-source community efforts such as KDL [7] or MoveIt! [8] have been used in the ROS ecosystem [6] to provide generic Inverse Kinematics and pick-and-place functionality, PhD-level robotics expertise is often required to integrate these software components into specific fielded applications. Moreover, these software components are designed to individually provide reliable, generic functionality, but typically have narrowly defined APIs that do not take full advantage of the capabilities of other components when integrated into a larger robotic software architecture. To address this community deficiency, TRACLabs is developing a software suite called CRAFTSMAN (CaRtesian-based AFfordance Template Suite for MANipulation) designed to make robot task and motion planning for object manipulation and tool-use practical in real-world applications. CRAFTSMAN currently consists of integrated open-source libraries for