Abstract Redundant manipulators have an infinitely large set of joint paths that yield a desired end-effector path in the task space. A unique joint path can be obtained by minimizing a global cost function. Prior optimal control methods minimize a global cost function to find a local minimum within a homotopy class. Many possible locally optimal joint paths are in different homotopy classes. This paper presents an algorithm that effectively searches the solution space and finds many locally optimal paths in all relevant homotopy classes. The path with the lowest cost is very likely the globally optimal path. The algorithm is demonstrated in a case study for which the globally optimal path would be impossible to find using traditional methods.

中文翻译：

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一种冗余度操纵的多同伦类最优路径规划

摘要 冗余机械手具有无限大的关节路径集，可在任务空间中产生所需的末端执行器路径。通过最小化全局成本函数可以获得唯一的联合路径。先前的最优控制方法最小化全局成本函数以在同伦类中找到局部最小值。许多可能的局部最优联合路径属于不同的同伦类。本文提出了一种有效搜索解空间并在所有相关同伦类中找到许多局部最优路径的算法。成本最低的路径很可能是全局最优路径。该算法在一个案例研究中得到了证明，使用传统方法无法找到全局最优路径。