GENERAL-METHOD FOR KINEMATIC SYNTHESIS OF MANIPULATORS WITH TASK SPECIFICATIONS

This paper deals with the kinematic synthesis of manipulators. A new m ethod based on distributed solving is used to determine the dimensiona l parameters of a general manipulator which is able to reach a set of given tasks specified by orientation and position. First, a general Di stributed Solving Method (DSM) is presented in three steps: the proble m statement, the objective functions formulations and the minimum para meters values determination. Then, this method is applied to solve the synthesis of the Denavit and Hartenberg set of parameters of a manipu lator with a given kinematic structure. In this case, the kind and the number of joints are specified and a set of constraints are included such as joint limits, range of dimensional parameters and geometrical obstacles avoidance. We show that if the Denavit and Hartenberg parame ters (DH) are known, the synthesis problem is reduced to an inverse ki nematic problem. We show also how the problem of robot base placement can be solved by the same method. A general algorithm is given for sol ving the synthesis problem for all kind of manipulators. The main cont ribution of this paper is a general method for kinematic synthesis of all kind of manipulators and some examples are presented for a six deg rees of freedom manipulator in cluttered environment.