Global torque optimization of redundant manipulator using dynamic programming

In this paper, the torque optimization of a kinematically redundant manipulator for minimizing the torque demands is discussed. The minimum torque solution based on a local optimization has been known to encounter the instability problem and then the global torque optimization was suggested as one of the alternatives. Herein, by adopting the infinity-norm rather than the 2-norm for the magnitude of torques, we are to propose a new cost function more advantageous to the avoidance of torque limits. By the way, a solution to the global torque optimization formulated with the new cost function can not be obtained by the previous methods due to their difficulties such as inability to treat discontinuous cost functions and various constraints on the joint variables. Thus, to overcome those deficiencies, we are developing a new approach using the dynamic programming. The effectiveness of the proposed method is shown through simulation examples for a 3-link planar redundant manipulator.