Minimum-Time Trajectory of Robot Manipulator

Using Harmony Search Algorithm

Panwadee Tangpattanakul and Pramin Artrit
Department of Electrical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Khon Kaen University,
Khon Kaen 40002 Thailand
E-mail : panwadee.t@gmail.com


Abstract-The optimal trajectory planning is an important
function in a robot control area. Generally, the operating function
of manipulators requires the highest performance such as
minimum time, minimum energy, and no damage to the system.
This paper proposes a minimum time trajectory planning that is
clamped with cubic splines and uses Harmony Search (HS)
algorithm for solving the optimization problem. Minimum time is
chosen to be the objective function as time is critical for
productivities in the industrial. However, kinematics constraints
such as velocities, accelerations and jerks limitation are still
considered. In this work, the simulation of the 6-DOFs robot
manipulator trajectory is employed to determine the minimum
time trajectory planning. The best solution from two techniques,
the HS and the Sequential Quadratic Programming (SQP), are
compared. The results show that the HS method obtains the
optimal interval time better than the SQP method and it does not
require finding the initial interval time value for the optimization
process. This reduces the complication and time consuming of the
optimization process.
Keywords-Robotics, Minimum Time, Trajectory Planning,
Cubic Splines, Harmony Search
I. INTRODUCTION
In the present, many researchers are developing algorithms
for obtaining the optimal trajectory planning of robot
manipulators. Their works are different in three commonly
problems: the objective function of optimization problems,
trajectory forms, and optimization techniques. The objective
functions of the optimization problem are focused in the
traveling time [1-4], jerk [4] or energy [5-7] minimization. The
trajectory forms are employed the polynomials [5], splines that
know some angular position nodes and clamps with the
piecewise cubic splines [2-4] or the B-splines [6,8]. The
optimization techniques are investigating, for example, the
Sequential Quadratic Programming (SQP) technique [2,4,8],
the Genetic Algorithm (GA) technique[5,7], the Simulated
Annealing (SA) technique[5], or the Hybrid of Sequential
Weight Increasing Factor Technique (SWIFT) and the GA [9].
This paper proposes a minimum-time trajectory of robot
manipulator which is clamped with cubic splines and uses
Harmony Search (HS) method for solving the optimization
problem. Minimum traveling time trajectory planning and
considering each joint velocity, acceleration and jerk
constraints are important in optimal trajectory planning
problems. This is because these constraints are typically
concerned in industrials productivity. Cubic splines are often
chosen to form the trajectory because it has continuity in
position, velocity and acceleration pattern. It requires less
complex polynomial (a 3
rd
order polynomial) where the high-
order polynomial can lead to oscillation from the Runges
phenomenon. The optimal trajectory planning which is
clamped with cubic splines was proposed in [4]. In the paper A.
Gasparetto and V. Zanotto used the Sequential Quadratic
Programming (SQP) technique for solving the optimization
problem. In [2], the reason for using SQP technique is SQP had
implemented and tested in term of efficiency, accuracy, and
frequency of successful convergence. However SQP can be
attracted by local minima and the objective function and
constraints must ensure to be continuity of second order.
In this paper, the Harmony Search (HS) algorithm is selected
to replace the SQP for solving this problem. An advantage of
the HS over the SQP is that it is an efficient heuristic
optimization algorithm and does not require finding the initial
interval time value for the optimization process. While, the
SQP technique needs the suitable initial values, which adding
the finding process, otherwise it can be trapped in a local
minimum. Therefore, the HS technique eliminates the initial
value finding process. It reduces the difficulty for the solving
procedure. Moreover, if any conditions are changed, in SQP
method, the new initial value must be found.
This paper is organized as follow. In Section II, the
trajectory which be clamped with cubic splines is formulated
for solving the constrained optimization problem. The
objective function and the kinematics constraints are shown.
Section III, describes the Harmony Search (HS) algorithm,
optimization process and the HS parameters. In Section IV, the
simulation model of 6-DOFs robot arm minimum time
trajectory is employed to be the testing system and the results
between the best solutions which are obtained by the HS and
the SQP method are compared. Finally, the work is concluded
in Section V.
II. MINIMUM-TIME TRAJECTORY CLAMPED WITH CUBIC
SPLINES
In order to determine the minimum-time trajectory clamped
with cubic splines, three problems: a) formulation of the
trajectory clamped with cubic splines, b) constrained
optimization problems, and c) constrains formulations, need to
be processed.
A. Formulation of the trajectory clamped with cubic splines
Robot trajectory defined from the end effector is calculated
via an inverse kinematics transformation of each robots joint.
This transformation gives a set of robot joint position values,
978-1-4244-3388-9/09/$25.00 2009 IEEE
q
j,i
, where j and i represent a joint number and a knot,
respectively. Knot is a set of position points that one joint
moves from the initial position(knot 1) to the terminal position
(knot n) and the joint arrives its series of knot at the time
t
1
,t
2
,, t
i
,,t
n
, respectively. An n is number of via-points from
the initial to the terminal. The joint position is also called a
joint vector. A path pattern between consecutive via-points of
each joint is connected through the cubic splines function.
Velocities and accelerations of the initial and the terminal
conditions are specified to be zero. These conditions cause two
equations of the cubic spline algorithm become zero and the
path pattern cannot be solved. Therefore, two extra knots
(position values at time t
2
and t
n-1
) are added and their position
values are not specified, see Table II. Let h
i
= t
i+1
- t
i
be the
interval time [t
i+1
, t
i
] and Q
j,i
(t
i
) be the cubic polynomial for the
j-th joint in the interval time [t
i+1
, t
i
]. The second derivative of
Q
j,i
(t) is a linear interpolation which can be written as [4]:
. 1 ,..., 1 ; ) ( ) ( ) (
1 , ,
1
,
=

=
+
+
n i t Q
h
t t
t Q
h
t t
t Q
i i j
i
i
i i j
i
i
i j
(1)
Integrating equation (1) for the given points Q
j,i
(t
i
) = q
j,i
and
Q
j,i
(t
i+1
) = q
j,i+1
, the following interpolation functions are
obtained:
2
1 ,
2
1
,
,
) (
2
) (
) (
2
) (
) (
i
i
i i j
i
i
i i j
i j
t t
h
t Q
t t
h
t Q
t Q + =
+
+

+
+ +
6
) (
6
) (
, , 1 , 1 , i i j i
i
i j i i j i
i
i j
t Q h
h
q t Q h
h
q

(2)
and
3 1 , 3
1
,
,
) (
6
) (
) (
6
) (
) (
i
i
i i j
i
i
i i j
i j
t t
h
t Q
t t
h
t Q
t Q + =
+
+


). (
6
) (
) (
6
) (
1
, , 1 , 1 ,
t t
t Q h
h
q
t t
t Q h
h
q
i
i i j i
i
i j
i
i i j i
i
i j

+
+
+ +


(3)
Using the continuity condition on velocities and
accelerations, a system of 2 n linear equations solving for
2 n unknowns
1 , , 3 , 2 ), (
,
= n i t Q
i i j


is obtained [3] as;
( ) ( ) ( ) [ ] .
1 1 , 3 3 , 2 2 ,
B t Q t Q t Q A
T
n n j j j
=

(4)
In (4), the matrix Ais non-singular, see in [3].

B. Constrained optimization problem
The modern industrial sector often uses the robots. The
important consideration to increase the productivity is traveling
time of robot manipulators. Therefore, the minimization of
traveling time is the objective function that is investigated. It
leads to trajectories with large value of the kinematics
quantities (velocities, accelerations and jerks). They cause to
oscillate and overshoot, so it is difficult to control the position
tracking and the actuator may be damaged. Thus the velocities,
accelerations, jerks constraints must also be considered in the
optimization process.
Hence, the objective function and constraints for finding the
optimal trajectory planning problem can be formulated as;
N j JC t q
N j AC t q
N j VC t q to subject
h
j j
j j
j j
n
i
i
, , 2 , 1 , ) (
, , 2 , 1 , ) (
, , 2 , 1 , ) (
min
1
1



=
=
=

=
(5)
where VC
j
is the velocity constraint for jth joint.
AC
j
is the acceleration constraint for jth joint.
JC
j
is the jerk constraint for jth joint.
N is number of robot joints.
The interval times h
i
between via-points are computed by the
constrained optimization problem (5).

C. Constraints formulation
The velocity constraints of the optimization problem are
formulated into the maximum absolute value of velocities at
the extreme points t
i
or t
i+1
or t
i
* where 0 ) (
*
,
*
,
= =
i i j i j
t Q Q

in
each interval [4]. The velocity constraints become:

{ }
. 1 , , 1 ; , , 1
; , ) ( , ) ( max
*
, 1 , ,
= =

+
n i and N j
VC Q t Q t Q
j i j i i j i i j


(6)
The acceleration constraints are formulated from the
acceleration linear function and the maximum absolute value
exists at t
i
or t
i+1
. The acceleration constraints become:

{ } . , , 1 ; , , max
, 1 ,
N j AC Q Q
j n j j

=
(7)
The jerk constraints are formulated from the rate of change
of acceleration.

. 1 , , 1 ; , , 1 ;
, 1 ,
= =

+
n i and N j JC
h
Q Q
j
i
i j i j


(8)
The equation (6)-(8) are the constraints of the optimization
problem in equation (5).

III. HARMONY SEARCH ALGORITHM
Harmony Search is a heuristic optimization algorithm[10]. It
has been shown that HS outperforms various optimization
methods in many optimization problems [11]. HS mimics the
improvisation of music players for searching the better
harmony. The comparison between optimization and music
performance process is shown in Table I.
The steps in the procedure of HS are as follows:
Step1: Initialize a Harmony Memory (HM) by randomness.
Step2: Improvise a new harmony from HM.
Step3: If the new harmony is better than minimum harmony
in HM, include the new harmony in HM, and exclude
the minimum harmony from HM.
Step4: If stopping criteria are not satisfied, go to step2.

There are 2 parameters for considering all the parts of the
feasible set that lead to obtain the global solution.
The first parameter is called Harmony Memory Considering
Rate (HMCR) which ranges from 0 to 1. It is the probability
for choosing a variable value from HM. For example, if
HMCR = 0.95, then 95% of variable values are chosen from
HM and 5% are not from HM. Hence HS can find notes
randomly within the possible playable range without
considering HM.
The second parameter is called Pitch Adjustment Rate (PAR)
that is the probability for shifting to neighboring values within
a range of possible values.
TABLE I
COMPARISON BETWEEN OPTIMIZATION AND MUSIC PERFORMANCE [10]

The Harmony Search(HS) has been developed by combining
features of others heuristic optimization methods. It employs
the preserving the history of past vectors similar to Tabu
Search (TS) and ability to vary the adaptation rate from
Simulated Annealing (SA). Furthermore, HS manages several
vectors simultaneously in the process similarly to the Genetic
Algorithm (GA). However, the major difference between GA
and HS is that HS makes a new vector from all existing vectors
and can independently consider each component variable in a
vector, while GA utilizes only two of the existing vectors and
keep the structure of a gene.

IV. SIMULATION RESULTS
The simulation compares two techniques, the Sequential
Quadratic Programming (SQP) and the Harmony Search (HS)
because the best result had so far given in the simulation of the
6 DOFs robot manipulator system proposed by Gasparetto and
Zanotto[4]. The knot position (via-point) and kinematics
constraints of the joints are shown in Table II, III, respectively.
Gasparettos algorithm[4] determined the initial interval time
value and used SQP techniques (from fmincon function of
MATLAB) for minimum time trajectory (k
T
= 1, k
J
= 0). The
SQP techniques result for minimum time trajectory is
8.5726sec. The comparison algorithm replaces the SQP with
the HS. The HS simulation results give the minimum time
trajectory 8.5718sec for 10,000 iterations and 8.5577sec for
200,000 iterations. Although the HS process uses the more
number of iteration, the whole SQP process takes computation
time nearby the 10,000 iterations of HS process. The process
time is not concerned as the optimal trajectory planning is
often run off-line. Therefore, the HS method gives a better time
of trajectory than SQP method where the kinematics constraint
is satisfied. Moreover, HS obtains the best solution without the
initial value finding time process.
The simulation results, which are reported in Fig.1- Fig.6,
use HS technique with the 6 DOFs robot manipulator, 6 via-
points and the total interval traveling time is 8.5577sec. The
figures show each joint minimum time trajectories and their
derivatives (velocities, accelerations and jerks). This shows
that HS method is efficient enough to solve an optimal robot
trajectory planning. It yields the best solution that gives the
minimum time trajectory and satisfies the kinematics limitation
constraints of the optimization problem.
TABLE II
KNOT POSITIONS OF EACH ROBOT MANIPULATOR JOINT
Joint Point1
(deg)
Point2
(deg)
Point3
(deg)
Point4
(deg)
Point5
(deg)
Point6
(deg)
1 -10 Extra
knot
60 20 Extra
knot
55
2 20 50 120 35
3 15 100 -10 30
4 150 100 40 10
5 30 110 90 70
6 120 60 100 25
TABLE III
KINEMATIC CONSTRAINTS OF EACH ROBOT MANIPULATOR JOINT
Joint Velocity (deg/s) Acceleration (deg/s
2
) Jerk (deg/s
3
)
1 100 60 60
2 95 60 66
3 100 75 85
4 150 70 70
5 130 90 75
6 110 80 70

V. CONCLUSION AND FUTURE WORK
The algorithm, which is proposed in this paper, is the
minimum time trajectory planning that is clamped with cubic
splines using Harmony Search (HS) method as the
optimization technique. The objective function is minimum
interval traveling time of robot manipulator with the
kinematics constraints (velocity, acceleration and jerk).
Harmony Search (HS) algorithm successfully obtains the better
solution than Sequential Quadratic Programming (SQP)
algorithm while the consumed process time is nearby.
Moreover HS does not need to use the initial values in the
optimization solving process like SQP. If the SQP algorithm
randomizes the initial value, the solution may be the local
optima. For HS, the initial value finding step can be eliminated.
The study case indicates that, HS algorithm is efficient for
solving the optimal trajectory and the obtained trajectory keep
under the kinematics limitations.
The future work is the HS method application for optimal
trajectory planning of pneumatic muscle actuator robot arm.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT
This research was supported by Chang Puak Mordindang
Scholarship, Faculty of Engineering, Khon Kaen University.
Especially, the author would like to thank Dr. Zong Woo Geem
for the original Harmony Search code, Dr.Sujin Bureerat for
the MATLAB optimization toolbox and Dr.Anupap
Meesomboon for all suggestions.

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Figure 1. Joint 1


Figure 2. Joint 2


Figure 3. Joint 3

Figure 4. Joint 4
Figure 5. Joint 5
Figure 6. Joint 6