Workspace Analysis and Optimization for Mobile Manipulator

Abstract

Nowadays, under the specific task requirement of mobile manipulators, the workspace analysis of these manipulators plays an indispensable role in the design and optimization of their geometric structure to cater to specific operation. The recent studies for workspace analysis focus more on the numerical solutions with simple and intuitive algorithm, yet they are considered to own high computational cost, low accuracy and even poor portability. Specifically, the studies for analytical solutions are more effective but insufficient due to the complex and non-linear kinematic property of mobile manipulator. Moreover, the current methods used in these studies mainly cater to the system with particular structure parameters, for example, commercial robots. Under this situation, one analytical theory research of workspace analysis for mobile manipulator with generic structure parameters is essential and requires to be considered thoroughly.

To generate the most suitable workspace for mobile manipulators catering to specific task requirement, the geometric structure of mobile manipulators should be optimized with considering the effective information from operated target. The one can be mentioned here is that the conventional researches only emphasize the pure enlargement for the volume of workspace and neglect the effectiveness of the workspace, so the emergence of the low-efficacy phenomenon for the generated workspace of mobile manipulator is inevitable. It is necessary and imperative to propose and develop one novel method to optimize the geometric structure of mobile manipulators that can generate the most effective workspace for specific tasks.

The research will present the workspace analysis and optimization for mobile manipulators catering to specific task. Firstly, the analytical problems for workspace of manipulators, such as singularity, the interior and exterior boundaries are illustrated and analyzed. Secondly, the effective information from operated target will be extracted and involved in optimizing the geometric structure of mobile manipulators to get the best performance in executing the desired tasks. Thirdly, the corresponding motion trajectory of mobile manipulator to the optimized geometric structure of mobile manipulators is planned and adjusted. Finally, it is predicted that the mobile painting robotic system will be established and employed to verify the possible findings in the future.