This paper describes an on-line planner for two cooperating arms whose task is to grab parts of various types on a conveyor belt and transfer them to their respective goals while avoiding collision with obstacles.
Parts arrive on the belt in random order, at any time.
Both goals and obstacles may be dynamically changed. This scenario is typical of manufacturing cells serving machine-tools, assembling products, or packaging objects. A number of challenging algorithmic problems arise in the efficient design, simulation, and implementation of such assembly lines. Worst case analysis of a new heuristic for the traveling salesman problem . Technical report GSIA, Carnegie-Mellon Univ., 1976.