Time-optimal and jerk-continuous trajectory planning for robot manipulators with kinematic constraints

In this paper a high smooth trajectory planning method is presented to improve the practical performance of tracking control for robot manipulators. The strategy is designed as a combination of the planning with multi-degree splines in Cartesian space and multi-degree B-splines in joint space. Following implementation, under the premise of precisely passing the via-points required, the cubic spline is used in Cartesian space planning to make either the velocities or the accelerations at the initial and ending moments controllable for the end effector. While the septuple B-spline is applied in joint space planning to make the velocities, accelerations and jerks bounded and continuous, with the initial and ending values of them configurable. In the meantime, minimum-time optimization problem is also discussed. Experimental results show that, the proposed approach is an effective solution to trajectory planning, with ensuring a both smooth and efficiency tracking performance with fluent movement for the robot manipulators. (C) 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.