Determining and Evaluating Trajectories of a Modular Machine End-Effector in a Manufacturing Environment using a Game Engine

The University of Stuttgart's Institute of Industrial Manufacturing and Management (IFF) has proven the feasibility of using a game engine for modelling, visualizing and controlling highly complex production modules in a user-friendly and effective way. This paper describes the extended use of this game engine, its integrated physics engine and path-finding algorithms to determine different possible trajectories of a multi-axis machine. Similarly to a navigation system, the calculated trajectories have been evaluated according to their lead time, movement smoothness and recalculation time. The results were stored as capability descriptions in a machine model ontology.