Analysis of the acceleration of non-redundant manipulators

The study of the acceleration properties at the end effector is important in the analysis, design, and control of robot manipulators. In previous efforts aimed at addressing this problem, the end-effector acceleration has been treated as a vector combining both the linear and angular accelerations. The methodology presented in this article provides characterizations of these two different types of accelerations and describes the relationship between them. This work is an extension of our previous studies on manipulator inertial and acceleration properties. The treatment relies on the ellipsoid expansion model, a simple geometric approach to efficiently analyze end-effector accelerations. Results of the application of this analysis to the PUMA 560 manipulator are discussed.