REDUNDANT ROBOT MANIPULATORS WITH JOINT AND LINK FLEXIBILITY .1. DYNAMIC MOTION PLANNING FOR MINIMUM END-EFFECTOR DEFORMATION

How to reduce the vibration deformation of robot manipulators with fle xible joint and link is a significant problem. A method is presented f or redundant robot manipulators with joint and link flexibility simult aneously to reduce its end-effector vibration deformation while tracki ng a prescribed trajectory in this paper. For a prescribed trajectory of redundant robots, there exists infinite possible joint motion becau se of redundancy and different joint motions cause different vibration deformations of the robot system. The new method can choose optimal j oint motion of the robot manipulator while keeping its end effector mo ving along the prescribed trajectory. The optimal joint motion yields minimum end effector vibration deformation. A planar robot manipulator with three flexible joints and flexible links is used in computer sim ulation and the simulation results show the method is effective. (C) 1 998 Elsevier Science Ltd.