Trajectory Planning in Joint Space for Mechanical Manipulators

In this paper, we present a novel method of mapping the task space onto the joint space. This map divides the joint space into patches (disjointed regions) and an n ways accessible region in the task space is exactly covered by n patches. This mapping allows one to predict the task space paths corresponding to the joint space paths without solving inverse kinematics along the path. The map is then utilized for joint space planning. Numerical examples are presented for illustration.