Time Optimal Control of Balanced Manipulators

Abstract

An efficient algorithm is presented for solving time-optimal control for a restricted class of manipulators: balanced, decoupled manipulators. It is shown how the dynamics of such manipulators are sufficiently simple that optimal control solutions for point-to-point moves can be found analytically. A change of coordinates is proposed in which the more difficult problem of time-optimal interception of moving targets can be solved efficiently. A fast algorithm is described for computing and updating optimal interception solutions on line.