Formulation and Numerical Solution of Robot Manipulators in Point-to-Point Motion with Maximum Load Carrying Capacity

Abstract. In this paper, a formulation is developed for obtaining the optimal trajectory of robot manipulators to maximize the load carrying capacity for a given point-to-point task. The presented method is based on open loop optimal control. The indirect approach is employed to derive optimality conditions based on Pontryagin''s Minimum Principle. The obtained necessary conditions for optimality lead to a two-point boundary-value problem solved via a multiple shooting method with the BVP4C command in MATLAB r. Since the carrying payload is one of the system parameters, a computational algorithm is developed, which provides the capability of calculating the maximum payload for a point-to-point task. The main advantage of this method is obtaining various optimal trajectories with di erent maximum payloads and path characteristics by changing the penalty matrices values. To demonstrate the eciency of the proposed method and algorithm in obtaining the maximum payload trajectory, simulation is performed on a two-link manipulator. Keywords: Robot manipulator; Maximum payload; Optimal trajectory; Optimal control.