Optimal control of a robot manipulator using a weighted time-energy cost function

An investigation of optimal control and path planning for a robot manipulator is conducted. A cost function which weights both the energy consumption of the manipulator and the time to go from one specified point to another is used. A nonlinear shooting algorithm is used to solve the minimization problem. The weighting on the manipulator energy consumption is set so that the joint actuators do not switch from positive to negative saturation and high-frequency unmodeled dynamics are not excited. Simulations of a two-degree-of-freedom arm are used to demonstrate the method