MEAM 5200 · Introduction to Robotics
Pick and Place for FRANKA EMIKA PANDA
Vision-guided pick-and-place for a 7-DoF manipulator, including IK and motion planning under perception uncertainty.
Period
Nov – Dec 2024
Tags
ROS · Gazebo · Inverse Kinematics · Vision
Highlights
- 01Vision-guided pick-and-place on a 7-DoF Franka Panda arm
- 02Inverse kinematics and motion planning for reliable block stacking
- 03Led a team with limited prior coding experience to a complete working system
Demo Video
Franka Pick and Place Demo (1.5x speed)
Write-up
The primary challenge was enabling reliable pick-and-place of static cubes with varying orientations using externally provided vision-based detections. Given object poses in the robot base frame, we implemented a custom geometric alignment method to compute top-down grasp poses, ensuring the end-effector remained parallel to the workspace surface for stable and collision-free grasps. A Jacobian pseudo-inverse inverse kinematics solver then mapped these Cartesian targets into joint-space configurations, enabling smooth execution of pick-and-place motions while maintaining safe arm postures.