Optimal rendezvous-point selection for robotic interception of moving objects

A Plumber 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 line-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.