Published online by Cambridge University Press: 09 March 2009
The problem of constructing a smooth path with respect to time through N given points in configuration space is considered. Two variants of an algorithm suggested by Paul are presented and evaluated. It is shown that the algorithms suggested in this paper yield in general considerable improvements in two respects: Firstly, the deviation of the resulting path from the given points is reduced markedly and secondly, the overall time needed for the movement is reduced significantly and consequently, is closer to the true minimum-time. The price to be paid for these improvements is a moderate increase of computation time allowing still online use of the algorithm.