Motion Programming Of Flexible Robot Manipulators With Multi-Degree Of Redundancy

The kinematic programming of flexible manipulators is an advanced topic in the field of robotics. Taking advantage of the multi-degree of redundancy, the performance of flexible robot can be improved by programming the self-motion of robot. In the past few years, only the robot manipulators with single-degree of redundancy has been considered. However, the robot manipulators with multi-degree of redundancy have larger redundant space and the optimal solution can be obtained more efficiently.In the paper, the motion programming for the flexible robot manipulators with multi-degree of redundancy is studied. Based on the dynamic analysis of flexible robot manipulators, two motion planning strategies are presented.Firstly, the motion programming of robot is presented to reduce the motion error of endpoint. The joint motion of robot has been optimized by following methods:pseudoinverse solution, initial joint configuration selecting, self-motion planning, and combination of both the initial joint configuration planning and the self-motion planning. Compared with the planar 3r robot which has one-degree of redundancy, the optimal programming of the planar 4r robot which has two-degree of redundancy is carried out. The result demonstrates the advantage of multi-degree of redundancy in improving motion precision.Secondly, based on the analysis of strain energy of flexible robot, the motion planning method to minimize strain energy of flexible robot is proposed. For both the flexible robot manipulator with one-degree of redundancy and that with two-degree of redundancy, numerical simulations are carried out. The result indicates that the scheme to minimize the strain energy is reasonable and yields satisfactory precision of end-point. The result also demonstrates that the flexible robot manipulator with multidegree of redundancy have better behaviour in decreasing elastic deformation than that with single-degree of redundancy.