Tasho: A Python Toolbox for Rapid Prototyping and Deployment of Optimal Control Problem-Based Complex Robot Motion Skills

Abstract

We present Tasho (Task specification for receding horizon control), an open-source Python toolbox that facilitates systematic programming of optimal control problem (OCP)-based robot motion skills. Separation-of-concerns is followed while designing the components of a motion skill, which promotes their modularity and reusability. This allows us to program complex motion tasks by configuring and composing simpler tasks. We provide templates for several basic tasks like point-to-point and end-effector path-following tasks to speed up prototyping. Internally, the task’s symbolic expressions are computed using CasADi and the resulting OCP is transcribed using Rockit. A wide and growing range of mature open-source optimization solvers are supported for solving the OCP. Monitor functions can be easily specified and are automatically deployed with the motion skill, so that the generated motion skills can be easily embedded in a larger control architecture involving higher-level discrete controllers. The motion skills thus programmed can be directly deployed on robot platforms using the C-code generation capabilities of CasADi. The toolbox has been validated through several experiments both in simulation and on physical robot systems. The open-source toolbox can be accessed at: https://gitlab.kuleuven.be/meco-software/tasho