Resolution of kinematic redundancy using contrained optimization techniques under kinematic inequality contraints

This paper considers a global resolution of kinematic redundancy under inequality constraints as a constrained optimal control. In this formulation, joint limits and obstacles are regarded as state variable inequality constraints, and joint velocity limits as control variable inequality constraints. Necessary and sufficient conditions are derived by using Pontryagin's minimum principle and penalty function method. These conditions leads to a two-point boundary-value problem (TPBVP) with natural, periodic and inequality boundary conditions. In order to solve the TPBVP and to find a global minimum, a numerical algorithm, named two-stage algorithm, is presented. Given initial joint pose, the first stage finds the optimal joint trajectory and its corresponding minimum performance cost. The second stage searches for the optimal initial joint pose with globally minimum cost in the self-motion manifold. The effectiveness of the proposed algorithm is demonstrated through a simulation with a 3-dof planar redundant manipulator.