Optimal Control of Multibody Systems in Minimal Coordinates

Abstract

onstrained optimization problems. Results for an industrial robot with six joints demonstrate that tailored optimization methods are very well suited for fast off-line optimization of robot trajectories. 1. Introduction In automotive industry, robotic manipulators play an important role for car production in automated assembly lines. The reduction of the cycle time of the production line is of great importance in order to reduce costs by improving efficiency. Here "optimal" robot trajectories and robust and efficient optimization methods for computing them are of great interest when planning production processes. 2. Modeling of the optimization problem Equations of Motion. Industrial robots have to act extremely fast. Therefore all dynamical effects have to be taken into account. The dynamical behavior of most industrial robots can be described in minimal coordinates by a system of second order differential equations (multibody system with tre