A research study submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Engineering, School of Engineering and Technology

Research Studies Project Report (M. Eng.) - Asian Institute of Technology, 1986

This research study investigates the temporal issues a nd their role in manipulation of physical objects. A conceptual framework for a prototype robot - instruction planning system, operating in an idealized setting of the blocks-world has been developed. And in t h is context various temporal considerations and their utility in task planning have been studied. In order to examine these concepts and their applications , a representative sub s,t of the above frame work has been implemented. The concepts o f temporal- relationship between events have been refined and a diagrammatic representation scheme - the Time-event diagram - has bee n designed. It allows to easily recognize time - relationships between subtasks and thus can facilitate production of optimized plan for a n assembling work. Based up on the experience from the present endeavor , the ways of designing a more sophisticated system capable of operating in the dynamic environment of the real- world applications has been discussed.