Analytical and deep learning approaches for solving the inverse kinematic problem of a high degrees of freedom robotic arm

Inverse kinematics is the basis for controlling the motion of robotic manipulators. It defines the required joint variables for the robotic end-effector accurately reach the desired location. Due to the derivation difficulty, computation complexity, singularity problem, and redundancy, analytical Inverse kinematics solutions pose numerous challenges to the operation of many robotic arms, especially for a manipulator with a high degree of freedom. This paper develops different Deep Learning networks for solving the Inverse kinematics problem of six-Degrees of Freedom robotic manipulators. The implemented neural architectures are Artificial Neural Network, Convolutional Neural Network, Long-Short Term Memory, Gated Recurrent Unit, and Bidirectional Long-Short Term Memory. In this context, we associate the proposed results with a specific tuning of Deep Learning network hyper-parameters (number of hidden layers, learning rate, Loss function, optimization algorithm, number of epochs, etc.). The Bidirectional Long-Short Term Memory network outperformed all proposed architectures. To be close as possible to the experimental results, we have included two types of noise in the training data set to validate which of the five proposed neural networks is more efficient. Furthermore, in this study, we compare the performance of analytical and soft computing solutions in generating robots' trajectories. We include this scenario, focusing on the advantage of implementing neural networks in avoiding the singularity problem that can occur using the analytical approach. In addition, we used the RoboDK simulator to show simulation results with real-world meaning. The performance of Deep Learning models depends on the complexity of the posed problem. Moreover, the complexity of the Inverse Kinematics problem is related to the number of Degrees of Freedom. At the end of this work, we evaluate the influence of the complexity of robotic manipulators on the proposed Deep Learning networks' performance. The results show that the implemented Deep Learning mechanisms performed well in reaching the desired pose of the end-effector. The proposed inverse kinematics strategies apply to other manipulators with different numbers of Degrees of Freedom.