Resolution of redundant manipulators via distance optimization

Abstract

Redundant manipulators are useful in practice as they have freedom in addition to that needed for a specific end-effector position. This additional freedom has to be properly resolved, and such redundancy resolution problems have been actively studied over the past decade. The most common scheme for redundancy resolution is achieved at the joint velocity level and does not take into account the presence of obstacles. This work presents a new scheme for redundancy resolution based on maximizing the shortest distance to obstacles. The aim is to resolve the redundancy by reconfiguring the robot to be at the safest pose or furthest from obstacles. The proposed scheme resolves the redundancy at the joint position level and, hence, has the advantage of ensuring collision-free motion. Several numerical examples in two- and three-dimensional spaces demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed scheme.