Configuration Optimization of Mobile Manipulators With Equality Constraints Using Evolutionary Programming

Abstract : A mobile manipulator generally possesses kinematic redundancy, which requires some method for selecting the configuration appropriate to the task. Evolutionary Programming (EP) has been used successfully to select an appropriate configuration using a large penalty on the end-point position to force the end-point to the goal position for the task. This paper demonstrates that using an equality constraint for the end-point position results in much faster convergence to approximately the same final configurations. The reasons for this increase in speed are examined using a simplified model to determine the relative size of their effects.