Kinematic Synthesis of Manipulators Using a Distributed Optimization Method

Abstract

In this paper, the rigid body guidance problem of general 6 degree of freedom manipulators is studied. A new method, called Distributed Optimization Method (DOM), is used to determine the dimensional parameters of general manipulators that are able to reach a finite number of given six degree of freedom position and orientation tasks. It is shown that the global multi-variable optimization problem of kinematic synthesis can be solved as a sequence of local, one variable, optimization problems. The new method allows the possibility to include additional criteria in the manipulator kinematic synthesis such as joint limits, range of dimensional parameters, obstacles avoidance, isotropy and number of configurations to reach a specific end-effector task. Two examples are given to illustrate the validity of the method.