Improved compact QP method for resolving manipulator redundancy

The Compact QP method is an effective and efficient algorithm for resolving the manipulator redundancy under inequality constraints. In this paper, a more computationally efficient scheme which will improve the efficiency of the Compact QP method - the Improved Compact QP method - is developed. With the technique of work space decomposition, the Redundant Inverse Kinematics problem can be decomposed into two subproblems. Thus, the size of the redundancy problem can be reduced. For an n degree-of-freedom spatial redundant manipulator, instead of a 6 × n matrix, only a 3 × (n - 3) matrix is needed to be manipulated by Gaussian elimination with partial pivoting for selecting the free variables. The simulation results on the CESAR manipulator indicate that the speedup of the Compact QP method as compared with the Original QP method is about 4.3. Furthermore, the speedup of the Improved Compact QP method is about 5.6. Therefore, it is believed that the Improved Compact QP method is one of the most efficient and effective optimization algorithm for resolving the manipulator redundancy under inequality constraints.