IEEE Robotics & Automation Magazine - September 2018 - 61

The Task-Motion Kit
By Neil T. Dantam, Swarat Chaudhuri, and Lydia E. Kavraki

R

An Open Source,
General-Purpose Task
and Motion Planning
Framework

obots require novel reasoning systems to achieve complex
objectives in new environments. Daily activities in the physical
world combine two types of reasoning: discrete and continuous.
For example, to set the table in Figure 1, the robot must make
discrete decisions about which and in what order to pick
objects, and it must execute these decisions by computing continuous
motions to reach objects or desired locations. Robotics has traditionally
treated these issues in isolation. Reasoning about discrete events is
referred to as task planning, while reasoning about and computing
continuous motions is in the realm of motion planning.
However, several recent works have shown that separating task
planning from motion planning, i.e., finding a series of actions
that will later be executed through continuous motion, is
problematic. For example, the next discrete action may
specify picking an object, but there may be no continuous motion for the robot to bring its hand to a
configuration that can actually grasp the object to
pick it up. Instead, task-motion planning (TMP)
tightly couples task planning and motion planning, producing a sequence of steps that can
actually be executed by a real robot to bring
the world from an initial to a final state.
This article provides an introduction to
TMP and discusses the implementation
and use of an open-source TMP framework that is adaptable to new robots,
scenarios, and algorithms.
TMP presents challenges both in
algorithmic design and software engineering. Interaction between the discrete
task component and the continuous
motion component imposes requirements not faced by stand-alone task planners or motion planners. The planner may
need to consider alternative task plans in an
efficient way until finding one that can actually be executed by the robot at hand, whereas
typical task planners generate only a single plan.
In addition, actions where the robot grasps and
rearranges objects will change the kinematics and
configuration space in which the robot can move,
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/MRA.2018.2815081
Date of publication: 17 May 2018

1070-9932/18©2018IEEE

©istockphoto.com/R_type

september 2018

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IEEE ROBOTICS & AUTOMATION MAGAZINE

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IEEE Robotics & Automation Magazine - September 2018

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Contents
IEEE Robotics & Automation Magazine - September 2018 - Cover1
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