Optimizing the location of assembly tasks in a manipulator's workspace

Off‐line programming of robotic workcells has become an invaluable tool for the workcell designer, however, current robot programming systems lack the capability to automatically determine the locations for performing assembly operations within the manipulator's workspace. A gradient function of manipulability in Cartesian space was developed based on an explicit determination of the manipulability function and the gradient of the manipulability function in joint space. A modified method of the steepest descent optimization procedure was then used as the basis for an algorithm that automatically locates an assembly task away from singularities within a manipulator's workspace. This algorithm can readily be extended to any nonredundant manipulator.