Title: A memetic differential evolution algorithm for the inverse kinematics problem of robot manipulators

Authors: Carla González Uzcátegui; Dolores Blanco Rojas

Addresses: Department of Systems Engineering and Automation, University Carlos III of Madrid, Av. Universidad 30, 28911 Leganés, Spain ' Department of Systems Engineering and Automation, University Carlos III of Madrid, Av. Universidad 30, 28911 Leganés, Spain

Abstract: The inverse kinematics (IK) of robot manipulators defines the problem of finding the joint configuration that places the end-effector in an arbitrary position and orientation. This problem can be formulated in the configuration space as a constrained optimisation model to avoid the numerical instability of Jacobian-based IK methods. Previous works have shown that differential evolution (DE) is effective in finding accurate solutions to the IK optimisation problem, but exhibits low convergence speed rates. In this paper we propose a memetic differential evolution (dDE) to improve the convergence behaviour of the standard DE scheme. Both algorithms are tested and compared in a simulation environment as kinematic inversion methods for two non-redundant robot manipulators. Results revealed that dDE outperforms the original DE algorithm in accuracy and convergence speed.

Keywords: memetics; inverse kinematics; differential evolution; constrained optimisation; robot manipulators; robot kinematics; joint configuration; robot pose; convergence speed; simulation.

DOI: 10.1504/IJMA.2013.053412

International Journal of Mechatronics and Automation, 2013 Vol.3 No.2, pp.118 - 131

Received: 25 Oct 2012
Accepted: 30 Jan 2013

Published online: 30 Apr 2014 *

Full-text access for editors Full-text access for subscribers Purchase this article Comment on this article