Robotic reactive motion with jerk reduction

This paper builds on initial work on specifying robot motion using human-inspired motor programs. The existing method relies on a series of square wave torque pulses to actuate the robot. Using such pulses to produce motions with a robot will generate large peaks in absolute jerk - change in acceleration per unit time - which can damage the robot and decrease motion stability. This paper presents three alternatives to the square wave pulse that reduce maximum absolute jerk without a significant loss in motion production. Moreover, the alternatives do not require additional parameterization. The alternatives are tested and the peak jerk and motion production of each is compared. The results show that smoothing the square wave pulse can significantly reduce jerk with a minor loss in the amount of motion that can be produced with a single pulse.