Optimal trajectory planning of a two-link flexible robot arm based on genetic algorithm for residual vibration reduction

Abstract

The optimal trajectory planning method for residual vibration reduction of a two-link flexible robot arm is proposed. The two-link flexible robot arm consists of a first rigid link and a second flexible link. The first and second joint angular velocities are described by use of four cubic polynomial functions. Then, applying both the constraint conditions and the initial and final conditions of the joint angular velocities, the trajectory of the two-link flexible robot arm is expressed by use of the four unknown parameters. Then, the fitness function of the genetic algorithm for the residual vibration reduction of the second flexible link is defined using the four unknown parameters as the genes, and the optimal trajectory planning algorithm is constructed by use of the genetic algorithm. Furthermore, the numerical calculations and the experiments were carried out, and it is confirmed that the residual vibrations can be greatly reduced.