Resolution of redundant manipulators via distance optimization

Redundant manipulators are useful in practice as they have freedom in addit ion to that needed for a specific end-effector position. This additional fr eedom has to be properly resolved, and such redundancy resolution problems have been actively studied over the past decade. The most common scheme for redundancy resolution is achieved at the joint velocity level and does not take into account the presence of obstacles. This work presents a new sche me for redundancy resolution based on maximizing the shortest distance to o bstacles. The aim is to resolve the redundancy by reconfiguring the robot t o be at the safest pose or furthest from obstacles. The proposed scheme res olves the redundancy at the joint position level and, hence, has the advant age of ensuring collision-free motion. Several numerical examples in two- a nd three-dimensional spaces demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed s cheme.