Optimal rendezvous-point selection for robotic interception of moving objects.

A number of active prediction planning and execution (APPE) systems have recently been proposed for robotic interception of moving objects. The cornerstone of such systems is the selection of a robot-object rendezvous-point on the predicted object trajectory. Unlike tracking-based systems, which minimize the state difference between the object and the robot at each control period, in this methodology the robot is sent directly to the selected rendezvous-point. A fine-motion tracking strategy would then be employed for grasping the moving object. Herein, a novel strategy for selecting the optimal (earliest) rendezvous-point is presented. For objects with predictable trajectories, this is a significant improvement over previous APPE strategies which select the rendezvous-point from a limited number of non-optimally chosen candidates.