Comparative study of SQP and metaheuristics for robotic manipulator design

The main goal of this paper is the design of manipulators with three-revolute joints (3R) using an optimization problem that takes into account the characteristics of the workspace. The optimization problem is formulated considering the workspace volume as the objective function. Constraints are added to guarantee the regularity of the envelope and force the workspace to occupy a pre-established area. A comparison among different optimization techniques is developed. The techniques employed are sequential quadratic programming (SQP), genetic algorithms (GAs), differential evolution (DE) and particle swarm optimization (PSO). Numerical examples are presented to validate the proposal methodology.