Inverse Kinematics For Serial Robot Manipulator End Effector Position And Orientation By Particle Swarm Optimization

This paper investigates the use of Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) approach in solving the inverse kinematics problem for serial robotic manipulators. Inverse kinematics is a fundamental problem in robotics: a set of joint angles must be calculated so that the robot arm can be manipulated to the corresponding desired end effector position and orientation. Traditional solution techniques include analytical methods which may or may not exist for a particular robot, numerical methods such as Newton-Raphson, Jacobian inverse and other techniques using swarm intelligence have been developed. Many of the reviewed robotic manipulator inverse kinematics solutions using swarm intelligence only deal with end effector position and not its orientation. Our PSO approach provides the convergence of a complete end effector pose and will be demonstrated using the Baxter Research Robot which has two seven-joint arms although the method can be applied to any general serial robotic manipulator.