
2023–2024 Maeda Lab, Yokohama National University
Robot Teaching
Teaching is indispensable for current industrial robots to execute tasks. Human operators have to
teach motions in detail to robots by, for example, conventional teaching/playback. However, robot
teaching is complicated and time-consuming for novice operators and the cost for training them
is often unaffordable in small-sized companies. Thus we are studying easy robot programming
methods toward the dissemination of robot utilization.
Robot programming with manual volume sweeping We developed a robot programming
method for part handling [1][2]. In this method, a human operator makes a robot manipulator
sweep a volume by its bodies. The swept volume stands for (a part of) the manipulator’s free
space, because the manipulator has passed through the volume without collisions. Next, the
obtained swept volume is used by a motion planner to generate a well-optimized path of the
manipulator automatically. The swept volume can be displayed with Augmented Reality (AR)
so that human operators can easily understand it, which leads to efficient robot programming
[3] (Fig. 4).
Assisting Online Robot Programming We are developing a support system for online robot
programming using an optical see-through AR device that can overlay useful information on a
real robot such as its movable area (Fig. 5). The system also supports the above robot program-
ming with manual volume sweeping [4]. Another support system for online robot programming
is also developed. In this system, it is possible to group and move existing teaching points,
and generate robot motions that connect the points. This is useful for adaptation to product
specification changes in robotic assembly [5].
References
[1] Y. Maeda, T. Ushioda and S. Makita: Easy Robot Programming for Industrial Manipulators by Manual
Volume Sweeping, Proc. of 2008 IEEE Int. Conf. on Robotics and Automation (ICRA 2008), pp. 2234–
2239, 2008.
[2] S. Ishii and Y. Maeda: Programming of Robots Based on Online Computation of Their Swept Vol-
umes, Proc. of 23rd IEEE Int. Symp. on Robot and Human Interactive Communication (RO-MAN 2014),
pp. 385–390, 2014.
[3] Y. Sarai and Y. Maeda: Robot Programming for Manipulators through Volume Sweeping and Augmented
Reality, Proc. of 13th IEEE Conf. on Automation Science and Engineering (CASE 2017), pp. 302–307,
2017.
[4] K. Takahashi and Y. Maeda: A Robot Programming System Based on ROS/MoveIt Utilizing AR: Im-
plementation of Motion Planning Function Based on Volume Sweeping, Proc. of SICE 23rd Conf. on
System Integration (SI2022), pp. 994–998, 2022 (in Japanese).
[5] H. Ihara and Y. Maeda: A Robot Programming System with Teach Point Manipulation and Motion Plan-
ning to Adapt Product Specification Change, Proc. of SICE 22nd Conf. on System Integration (SI2021),
pp. 3263–3267, 2021 (in Japanese).
Fig. 4 AR Display of Swept Volume and Planned Path
Fig. 5 AR Display of Movable
Area with Fixed Gripper Pose
3