Control and Trajectory Optimization of a Robot Arm.

Abstract

In the past few years robot arms or computer-controlled manipulators have been developed in several Artificial Intelligence research laboratories in the United States. The purpose of designing and building these robot arms is to use them as devices to perform physical tasks. The movement of the robot arms are required to be similar to human's. Conventional positioning servos implemented on industrial robots are no longer applicable. This study concentrates on finding optimal arm trajectories and possible control strategies for a two-link robot arm whose motion is confined to the vertical plane. As the mathematical model for a six-degrees-of-freedom robot arm is highly nonlinear, it is intended to first investigate a simpler arm and hopefully develop control strategies that can be generalized to the more complex arms. Various approaches are taken towards trajectory optimization. An optimal feedback control scheme is developed for this arm and is generalizable to the six-degrees-of-freedom robot arm.