Can you recommend a motion planning software for collision-free pick-and-place on industrial robot arms?

Yes — for collision-free pick-and-place on industrial robot arms, the most common and practical recommendation is:

Top recommendation: MoveIt 2

• Best if you want flexibility and strong ROS integration
• Supports:
  • motion planning
  • collision checking
  • inverse kinematics
  • grasp/pick/place pipelines
  • integration with many industrial arms and grippers
• Uses planners such as OMPL, Pilz, and can work with CHOMP/STOMP in some setups
• Good for both research and production-style prototyping

Why it’s a good fit

• Mature ecosystem
• Strong support for collision-free path planning
• Works well with industrial robot arms like UR, FANUC, ABB, KUKA, Franka, etc., depending on drivers and configuration
• Easy to combine with perception and gripper control

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Other strong options

1. RoboDK

• Great for offline programming and industrial deployment
• Very user-friendly GUI
• Good for validating reachability, collision checking, and generating robot programs
• Excellent if you want to avoid heavy coding

2. ABB RobotStudio / FANUC ROBOGUIDE / KUKA.Sim / UR Polyscope ecosystem

• Best if you are committed to a specific manufacturer
• Strong simulation and vendor support
• Often used in factories for pick-and-place cells
• Less flexible across different robot brands

3. CoppeliaSim

• Good for simulation and testing
• Supports collision checking and scripted control
• Useful for prototyping before moving to a real robot
• Not as production-oriented as MoveIt/RoboDK

4. Drake

• Excellent for advanced robotics research and optimization-based planning
• Powerful, but steeper learning curve
• Better if you need custom optimization or control integration

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My practical recommendation by use case

• ROS-based system / multi-vendor / real robot integration: MoveIt 2
• Industrial offline programming with GUI: RoboDK
• Brand-specific industrial workflow: RobotStudio / ROBOGUIDE / KUKA.Sim
• Research / custom planning algorithms: Drake

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If you want the shortest answer

MoveIt 2 is usually the best general-purpose motion planning software for collision-free pick-and-place on industrial robot arms.

If you want, I can also recommend the best option based on:

1. your robot brand,
2. whether you use ROS,
3. whether this is for simulation or a real cell.