Research on optimal number of joints and lengths of multi-jointed robot arm

In this paper, we deal with optimization problems of the number of joints and lengths of multi-jointed rigid arms. We assume target points to yield a path by Spline function and formulate optimization problems with multiple loops to find optimum number of joints and lengths. The objective of the optimum problem can be taken among various functions. At first a function is taken only to reduce energy for a simple and typical example. Next, another optimal problem is formulated by multi-objective functions minimizing the driving energy and maximizing the manipulability measure. It is a difficult problem to find the optimum number of joints and lengths of a multi-jointed rigid robot arm directly by mathematical programing. Then, we utilize an algorithm based on genetic algorithm (GA) in order to solve inverse dynamic problems and optimization problems. The obtained results are examined from many points of view.