Abstract Robotic manipulation of deformable linear objects has potential application in aircraft cable assembly. However, it is difficult to be implemented in real tasks due to requiring prediction of the object’s deformation and obstacle-free manipulation planning with high efficiency. Aiming at exploring automatic assembly planning for aircraft cables assembly in narrow cabins with obstacles, this paper proposes a novel planning algorithm named RRT-BwC (Bi-direction with Constrain). Firstly, formulation of the question and the manipulation objects are presented with geometric definitions. Then a bi-RRT-tree searching method is developed to design the planner for overcoming obstacles in the high dimensional planning space. The numerical distance between configurations in the cable shape space are defined to measure the demands for their transition in consideration of the manipulation logics. And the sampling zone constrains to the shape configuration nodes are also discussed. Finally, the algorithm presents a valid manipulation sequence for robotic manipulation. The functionality and performance of the improved RRT approach are demonstrated with a simulated real-world problem of aircraft cable assembly, exhibiting computation efficiency promotion.

中文翻译：

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一种基于双向搜索和几何约束采样的飞机电缆装配自动操纵规划算法

摘要 可变形线性物体的机器人操纵在飞机电缆组装中具有潜在的应用。然而，由于需要高效地预测物体的变形和无障碍操作规划，因此很难在实际任务中实现。针对飞机电缆在有障碍物的狭窄机舱内装配的自动装配规划问题，本文提出了一种新的规划算法RRT-BwC（Bi-direction with Constrain）。首先，提出问题和操作对象的几何定义。然后开发了一种双 RRT 树搜索方法来设计在高维规划空间中克服障碍的规划器。考虑到操纵逻辑，定义了电缆形状空间中配置之间的数值距离以衡量它们的转换需求。并且还讨论了采样区对形状配置节点的约束。最后，该算法为机器人操作提供了一个有效的操作序列。改进的 RRT 方法的功能和性能通过飞机电缆组装的模拟现实问题得到了证明，展示了计算效率的提升。