An improved load distribution scheme for coordinating manipulators

As joint torques provided by actuators are bounded, load distribution in multiarm systems have typically been considered as constrained optimization problems. By introducing an objective function that linearly combines the total system energy consumed with the maximum normalized torque by an adaptive weighting factor, the authors obtain a two-loop load distribution scheme for minimizing the total system energy spent while ensuring that the maximum torque does not exceed the upper bound. Constraints are eliminated, so that a variety of well-established unconstrained optimization algorithms can be used to solve the problem more efficiently than their constrained counterparts. A case study is included to illustrate the scheme