A NUMERICAL SOLUTION METHOD FOR THE INVERSE ROBOTIC KINEMATICS PROBLEM USING PARTICLE SWARM OPTIMIZATION

 A NUMERICAL SOLUTION METHOD FOR THE INVERSE ROBOTIC KINEMATICS PROBLEM  USING PARTICLE SWARM OPTIMIZATION

    by Scott Prince

    B.S. University of Maine, 2009

    Advisor: Mohsen Shahinpoor

    A Lay Abstract of the Thesis

    Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the

    Requirements for the Degree of

    Master of Science

    (in Mechanical Engineering)

    May, 2010

In robotics, a commonly encountered problem is that of solving the inverse kinematics problem for a robotic manipulator such as a robotic arm. The inverse kinematics equations determine the robot joint angles required to move the

end effector of a robotic manipulator to a desired position and orientation, and are useful in many robotics applications. The inverse kinematics equations are generally nonlinear and therefore difficult to solve. Presented here instead is a numerical solution method for the inverse kinematics problem which uses particle swarm optimization (PSO). Particle swarm optimization is a numerical optimization algorithm which is widely used to solve nonlinear sets of equations. Use of the particle swarm algorithm for inverse kinematics has not previously been reported therefore this thesis will present the requisite mathematics and kinematics for using the particle swarm algorithm to solve the inverse kinematics problem. Results of simulations of some common robot configurations using a particle swarm optimization inverse kinematics solver will also be presented.