Trajectory Planning Based on Firefly Metaheuristic Algorithm Applied to Pneumatically Driven Modular Robots

Abstract

One of the main goals of modern manufacturing systems lies in attaining more flexibility and reutilization capabilities with lower costs. This paper presents the development of a proposal for the design and development of mechatronic modules to use on the mounting of robot manipulators based on the concept of “agent”, which is largely employed in informatics systems. We first describe the main features of this research project, after focusing on its current development stage, which regards the conception of a general methodology for trajectory planning of modular robotic systems. The proposed solution is evaluated and validated by means of a case study focused on robots with pneumatic actuators. In this case study, the structure of a modular pneumatic Cartesian robot and its main characteristics (kinematic chain, workspace, etc.) is developed under modular agent concepts. Using a proposed task to be performed by the manipulator, a working path is defined by means of cubic spline interpolation curves, and an objective function for the optimization problem is written so as to minimize the movement time between the beginning and the end of the trajectory. The proposed optimization problem is numerically solved based on the use of the Firefly Metaheuristic Algorithm and, finally, the trajectory planning curves obtained by means of this strategy are presented and discussed.