Cyclic Path Planning of Hyper-redundant Manipulator using Whale Optimization Algorithm

Abstract

This paper develops a path planning algorithm of hyper-redundant manipulators to achieve a cyclic property. The basic idea is based on a geometrical analysis of a 3-link planar series manipulator in which there is an orientation angle boundary of a prescribed path. To achieve the repetitive behavior, for hyper-redundant manipulators consisting of 3-link components, an additional path is chosen in such away so that it is a repetitive curve which has the same curve frequency with the prescribed end-effector path. To solve the redundancy resolution, meta-heuristic optimizations, namely Genetic Algorithm (GA) and Whale Optimization Algorithm (WOA), are applied to search optimal trajectories inside local orientation angle boundaries. Results show that using constant of the local orientation angle trajectories for the 3-link component, the cyclic properties can be achieved. The performance of the WOA shows very promising result where generally it obtains the lowest fitness value as compare with the GA. Depending on the complexity of the path planning, dividing the path into several stages via intermediate points may be necessary to achieve the good posture. The performance of the swarm based meta-heuristic optimization, namely the WOA, shows very promising result where generally it obtains the lowest fitness value as compare with the GA. Using the developed approach, not only the cyclic property is obtained but also the optimal movement of the hyper-redundant manipulator is achieved.