Determination method for power-saved driving motions of manipulators by heuristic algorithms (in case of PTP control)

This study proposed a method for suppressing torques and consumed energy of manipulators considering an effect of inertial forces in order to achieve power-saved drive. The present paper describes the case that the start and end points of a work path of a manipulator are specified and the path between the points can be determined arbitrarily, which is so-called point-to-point (PTP) control. The proposed method determines both the initial pose of a manipulator and input motions of its joints so that the torque or consumed energy is suppressed. The input motion of the joint is expressed by a motion curve that indicates the time profiles of input displacements, velocities and accelerations. The proposed method determines the motion curve as a polynomial with appropriate coefficients. Those coefficients and their values are decided by a heuristic algorithm in order to suppress the input torques or consumed energy of a manipulator. The paper actually determines the power-saved drive motion of “PUMA560” by the proposed method and reveals its effectiveness.