Version 1.0, August 31, 2001, Copyright, Hugh Jack 1993-2001
One factor that is now available for all commercial robots is the ability for the human user to plan the path. This may be done with a special graphical program, or by moving the robot and setting points, or by entering sets of points. These methods are proven, and do work, but they are very inefficient, inflexible, and prone to errors. Thus the thrust of this paper will be to ignore the interactive approach, because automated path planning is much more desirable. The interactive approach will almost guarantee that an operator will not find an optimal approach. Finding a good path is not possible without having to stop the robot and lose production time.