Robot Manipulator Redundancy Resolution

Chapter 10Pseudoinverse Method and Singularities Discussed

10.1 Introduction

A manipulator is said to be redundant when more DOF are available than the minimum number required to perform a specific end-effector primary task [1]. For redundant manipulators, as discussed in previous chapters, the inverse kinematic resolution is a fundamental issue in operating the robot systems [1, 3, 63, 65, 78, 183–188]. The general description of this problem is that, given the desired Cartesian path for the manipulator's end-effector to track, how can we generate the corresponding joint trajectory in real time ? Note that and, thus, there exist multiple or an infinite number of feasible solutions to the inverse-kinematic problem. In this sense, the redundancy of joint motion, together with kinematic and dynamic nonlinearities, complicate the manipulator control problem significantly.

However, by resolving the redundancy problem properly, the manipulators can avoid joint physical limits and obstacles, and optimize various secondary criteria [1, 78, 183, 184]. To take full advantage of the redundancy, ...