Maximum-dynamic-payload trajectory for flexible robot manipulators with kinematic redundancy

High payload-to-mass ratio is one of the advantages of flexible robot manipulators. For a given point-to-point task, the maximum dynamic payload-carrying capacity of a flexible redundant robot manipulator (FRM) is established in the paper. A finite-element model is presented for describing the dynamics of the system considering the added payload and the flexibility of the FRM. Different from rigid-body manipulators, vibration deformation, which is due to lightweight and high operation accelerations, is considered as constraint for the system optimization. The kinematic redundancy is integrated into the optimization formulation. The maximum-dynamic-payload trajectory is determined through optimization in which a planar FRM is employed as an example. This method is useful especially for FRMs performing repeated point-to-point operations. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.