Redundancy indices of kinematically redundant manipulators

In this work, novel measures, denoted redundancy indices, are proposed to quantify the amount of redundancy in the joint rate space for kinematically redundant manipulators. Redundancy indices are easy to compute and can be applied to all types of kinematically redundant manipulators. Many kinematic constraints (such as the joint angle limits, joint rate bounds, and joint acceleration constraints) and dynamics constraints (such as the joint torque limits) may be considered in the proposed measure. Simulation results in application examples show that by monitoring redundancy indices in the motion planning online, the manipulator's redundancy can be used to the possible extent. For example, the total execution time for a given motion with multiple goals can be reduced significantly. Other possible applications of the proposed measure are under investigation.