System of path planning for robotic manipulators based on maximum acceleration and finite jerk constraints

A wafer handling system comprising:

• (a) a robot with an axis of rotation and a bifurcated arm, and a wafer manipulator, said robot for moving a wafer along a path having a plurality of segments from a first location to a second location;
• and
• (b) control apparatus for moving said wafer along said path under controlled condition so as to limit acceleration and jerk, and wherein said controller calculates and directs a path trajectory with an optimized maximum path acceleration for the movements of the wafer manipulator, producing arm movement along the path trajectory by calculating the maximum acceleration and jerk for each of a series of straight line segments and interconnecting sinusoid paths over the path trajectory to minimize the total path trajectory length and maintain maximum path acceleration for the move from the first location to the second location.