Version Policy

• 0.1.0 - initial release
• 0.2.0 - release after ROS API review. This API is expected to stay stable but there are no guarantees.

Development Model

• The stack follows the ROS release model but not strictly. Best effort will be made to keep API changes backwards compatible.
• Frequent versioned releases will provide stability to users but development will continue in trunk.
• Packages first go through a ROS API review followed by a C++ API review. Initial releases will be with a ROS API.

Future Goals

sbpl_arm_planner

While we are continuing our research in improving this motion planning algorithm we also intend on improving its implementation to support any arbitrary manipulator and to provide support for all of the features that the move_arm message request offers. Below are things we intend to change in future stack releases, most likely in the top-down order listed below.

• Generalize the Planner
  • Remove the dependency on the PR2_arm_kinematics package.
  • Include support through the pluginlib for a specified inverse kinematics package to be used. (This is the last piece required to fully generalize the planner to any manipulator platform.)
• Switch configuration files to yaml
  • Remove old configuration text file format and replace with yaml
• Dealing with Constraints
  • Goal Region Constraints: Support goal region constraints for all shapes
  • Joint Constraints: While it isn't the main focus of our research, we do have a search algorithm capable of finding a kinematically feasible path to a joint constraint.
  • Path Constraints