Evaluating Robot Manipulability in Constrained Environments by Velocity Polytope Reduction

Robot performance measures are essential tools for quantifying the ability to execute manipulation tasks. Typically, these measures focus on the system's geometric structure and how it impacts the transformation from joint to Cartesian space. In this paper, we propose a new method to evaluate the robot's performance that considers both the system's geometric structure and the presence of obstacles close to or in contact with the robot. This method reduces the manipulator's joint velocity limits by deforming the manipulability polytope to account for obstacles. These constraints are then propagated throughout the chain to get a more representative measure of the end effector's velocity capabilities. The proposed method leads to improved understanding of the robot's capacities in a constrained environment.