(MIT: Cambridge, MA) -- Before a robot can grab dishes off a shelf to set the table, it must ensure its gripper and arm won’t crash into anything and potentially shatter the fine china. As part of its motion planning process, a robot typically runs “safety check” algorithms that verify its trajectory is collision-free.

However, sometimes these algorithms generate false positives, claiming a trajectory is safe when the robot would actually collide with something. Other methods that can prevent false positives are typically too slow for robots in the real world.

Now, MIT researchers have developed a safety check technique that can prove with 100 percent accuracy a robot’s trajectory will remain collision-free (assuming the robot model and environment is itself accurate). Their method, which is so precise it can discriminate between trajectories that differ by only millimeters, provides proof in only a few seconds.

But a user doesn’t need to take the researchers’ word for it—the mathematical proof generated by this technique can be checked quickly with relatively simple math.

 …