On the Use of a Genetic Algorithm for Determining Ho–Cook Coefficients in Continuous Path Planning of Industrial Robotic Manipulators

Abstract

Path planning is one of the key steps in the application of industrial robotic manipulators. The process of determining trajectories can be time-intensive and mathematically complex, which raises the complexity and error proneness of this task. For these reasons, the authors tested the application of a genetic algorithm (GA) on the problem of continuous path planning based on the Ho–Cook method. The generation of trajectories was optimized with regard to the distance between individual segments. A boundary condition was set regarding the minimal values that the trajectory parameters can be set in order to avoid stationary solutions. Any distances between segments introduced by this condition were addressed with Bezier spline interpolation applied between evolved segments. The developed algorithm was shown to generate trajectories and can easily be applied for the further path planning of various robotic manipulators, which indicates great promise for the use of such algorithms.

Keywords

• evolutionary computing
• genetic algorithm
• industrial robotic manipulators
• path planning