Kinematic Analysis and Simulation of an Industrial Rail-Mounted Robot Manipulator Using Ruckig for Enhanced Path Planning

Abstract

Robotic manipulators are being widely used in industrial operations and healthcare due to their versatile functionalities. However, the confined workspace of fixed robotic arms limits their applicability in scenarios requiring a broader range of configurations. To overcome this limitation, this research provides a case study on a robotic system composed of two primary subsystems an articulated robotic arm and a linear rail. A simple path planning task was carried out using CoppeliaSim simulation software to study the effect of Ruckig, an advanced online trajectory generation algorithm, alongside the RRT-Connect path planning algorithm. This study demonstrates the capacity of Ruckig to improve the efficiency of path planning regarding the process time and path length. The results showed that Ruckig helped reducing the process time by 90% with an exceptional improvement to the motion profiles of the system. Regarding the path length, it seems that it was able to decrease the length in certain cases, but not all. The reduction reached a maximum of 50% compared to the original length.