This paper uses a configuration space ( -space) based method to compute interference-free configuration for stacking polyhedral sheet metal parts. This work forms the interference analysis module of a stacking planner developed by us. Parts in a stack should not interfere with each other and should also satisfy stability, grasping, and stacking plan feasibility related constraints. We present two techniques to speed up the expensive step of -space obstacle computation. The first technique identifies orientation intervals (for a convex pair of solids) within which the topology of face-edge-vertex graph of an obstacle stays the same. Within this interval, -space obstacle geometry for one orientation can be extrapolated from obstacle geometry for another orientation. Our experiments show that extrapolation takes an order of magnitude less than the time taken to compute an obstacle from scratch. The second technique computes near optimal interference-free positions for a discrete orientati...
Venkateswara R. Ayyadevara, David A. Bourne, Kenji