Manipulability and joint-limit distance optimizing inverse kinematics

A system comprising one or more computers and one or more storage devices storing instructions that are operable, when executed by the one or more computers to cause the one or more computers to perform operations comprising:

• receiving a first waypoint that represents a current pose of a robot comprising a plurality of joints;
• receiving a second waypoint that represents a target pose of the robot;
• obtaining a first joint state that defines an angular joint configuration that corresponds with the first waypoint of the robot;
• generating a motion between the first joint state and a second joint state that defines an angular joint configuration that corresponds with the second waypoint of the robot, wherein generating the motion comprises performing an optimization process on the first and second joint states of the robot that optimizes a unified joint-manipulability-and-joint-limit-distance metric of the robot to simultaneously maximize, for each joint in the plurality of joints, (i) a measure of possible motion of different degrees of freedom for the joint and (ii) a joint-limit distance that combines a first difference between the first joint state and a maximum joint state for the joint and a second difference between the first joint state and a minimum joint state for the joint;
• and
• generating control rules for the motion to be followed by the robot based on the target pose of the second waypoint.

A non-transitory computer storage medium encoded with a computer program, the program comprising instructions that are operable, when executed by data processing apparatus to cause the data processing apparatus to perform operations comprising:

• receiving a first waypoint that represents a current pose of a robot comprising a plurality of joints;
• receiving a second waypoint that represents a target pose of the robot;
• obtaining a first joint state that defines an angular joint configuration that corresponds with the first waypoint of the robot;
• generating a motion between the first joint state and a second joint state that defines an angular joint configuration that corresponds with the second waypoint of the robot, wherein generating the motion comprises performing an optimization process on the first and second joint states of the robot that optimizes a unified joint-manipulability-and-joint-limit-distance metric of the robot to simultaneously maximize, for each joint in the plurality of joints, (i) a measure of possible motion of different degrees of freedom for the joint and (ii) a joint-limit distance that combines a first difference between the first joint state and a maximum joint state for the joint and a second difference between the first joint state and a minimum joint state for the joint;
• and
• generating control rules for the motion to be followed by the robot based on the target pose of the second waypoint.