Abstract

The concept of dynamic manipulability measure of robot arms is proposed as a quantitative measure of their manipulating ability in positioning and orienting the end-effectors, which takes the arm dynamics into consideration. This measure is defined on the basis of the relation between the joint driving force and the acceleration of the end-effector. Some properties of the measure are established. A two-joint link mechanism is analyzed and its best posture is obtained under certain condition from the viewpoint of this measure. A numerical example is also given to illustrate the utilization of this concept for the design of robot manipulators.