Abstract: There are innumerable inverse kinematics solutions that can meet the demand of end-effector position and orientation for the redundant humanoid manipulator. Also each manipulator joint has its physical constraints for the connecting rod structure and figuration design. In order to make the inverse kinematics solution away from the joint position limitation maximization, an algorithm that combines geometry method and numerical iterative method is proposed to solve the inverse kinematics problem of redundant humanoid manipulator (8-DOF) . Based on the derived geometric formula of the inverse kinematics problem, the “Away Limitation Level” of the humanoid manipulator is adopted as fitness function and optimization goal, and then particle swarm optimization (PSO) is used to search for the optimal combination of the redundant joint, and the optimal inverse kinematics solution can be obtained in this method. The proposed method can not only solve the multiple inverse kinematics solutions problem of the redundant humanoid manipulator, but also have some advantages, i.e., the solution no theoretical error, fast solving speed and the large margin away from the joint position limitation. Numerical simulation results demonstrate the effectiveness of this algorithm.

Key words: redundant manipulator;inverse kinematics;geometrical method;numerical iterative;away limitation level