Reduced jerk joint space trajectory planning method using 5-3-5 spline for robot manipulators

A new trajectory planning method for generating bounded and continuous jerk trajectories in joint space has been developed and tested. In manipulator trajectory planning, reduced jerk trajectories are desired for path tracking and vibration suppression. The proposed interpolation algorithm in this research generates a spline, composed with 5th-order, 3rdorder and 5th-order polynomial segments (5-3-5 spline) which can be used for point-to-point trajectories and trajectories with via points. The generated trajectories are continuously differentiable in position, velocity, acceleration, and has a start and end zero bounded continuous jerk profile. The algorithm allows the user to independently define the position, velocity, acceleration and jerk values at both start and end points, via point positions and velocities. These user definable parameters in the proposed 5-3-5 spline algorithm gives the flexibility for generating trajectories for various motion characteristics. Generated trajectories were tested successfully on DENSO VP6 robot arm. The experimental results are presented.