Generation of joint trajectory requiring lower joint velocities for a redundant manipulator

A numerical scheme is presented to generate the joint trajectory of a seven-degree-of-freedom redundant manipulator such that the resulting manipulator configurations require lower joint velocities to follow a desired end-effector trajectory. A three dimensional plot of the minimum joint velocity norm as a function of the self motion at each point along a given end-effector trajectory is used to demonstrate the effectiveness of the trajectory generation scheme. A seven-degree-of-freedom Robotics Research manipulator is used as an example.<>