Multi-task closed-loop inverse kinematics stability through semidefinite programming
J. Marti-Saumell, A. Santamaria-Navarro, C. Ocampo-Martinez and J. Andrade-Cetto
IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, pp. 7108-7114, Paris, France, 2020.

Today’s complex robotic designs comprise in some cases a large number of degrees of freedom, enabling for multi-objective task resolution (e.g., humanoid robots or aerial manipulators). This paper tackles the local stability problem of a hierarchical closed-loop inverse kinematics algorithm for such highly redundant robots. We present a method to guarantee this system stability by performing an online tuning of the closed-loop control gains. We define a semi-definite programming problem (SDP) with these gains as decision variables and a discrete-time Lyapunov stability condition as a linear matrix inequality, constraining the SDP optimization problem and guaranteeing the local stability of the prioritized tasks. To the best of authors’ knowledge, this work represents the first mathematical development of an SDP formulation that introduces these stability conditions for a multi-objective closed-loop inverse kinematic problem for highly redundant robots. The validity of the proposed approach is demonstrated through simulation case studies, including didactic examples and a Matlab toolbox for the benefit of the community.