Optimal location of a robot path when considering velocity performance

A method for searching the best location of a path in the robot workspace considering the velocity performance of the robot is presented. After a thorough investigation of the robot performance indices, a new measure for the velocity efficiency of a robot moving its end-effector along a path is introduced. This measure is an approximation of the minimum of the Manipulator Velocity Ratio (MVR) along the path. The minimum is calculated from a finite set of MVRs determined at specified points of the path using an algorithm for an approximate motion of the end effector along the path. The introduced measure is used as the objective function in an optimisation problem, where an optimal location of the path is searched. The objective function is procedural and non continuous, so a Genetic Algorithm is used to search the space for the optimal location of the path. The proposed method is tested using a simulated PUMA-like robot, which has to move its end-effector along a straightline segment. At the end of the paper, the results obtained in these tests are presented and discussed.