A multi-objective workspace optimization of 3R manipulator using modified PSO

Abstract

The manipulator capability of a robot largely depends on the workspace (WS) of the manipulator apart from other parameters. With the constraints in mind, the optimization of the workspace is of prime importance in designing the manipulator. The workspace of manipulator is formulated as a constrained optimization problem with workspace volume as objective function and workspace volume and maximum manipulator size as a multi-objective function. It is observed that the previous literature is confined to use of conventional soft computing algorithms only, while a new search modified algorithm is conceptualized and proposed here to improve the computational efficiency. The proposed algorithm gives a good set of geometric parameters of manipulator within the applied constrained limits for both mono and multi-objective optimization. The efficiency of the proposed approach to optimize the workspace of 3R manipulators is exhibited through two cases. © 2012 Springer-Verlag.