A fundamental and ever present problem in robotics is the inverse kinematics problem. The standard approach to this problem is through the Jacobian approach that solves the problem at the velocity level and then uses integration to find the joint angles. This approach is prone to a number of difficulties including singularities.

To resolve these issues, we formulate and solve the inverse kinematic problem at the position level using a genetic algorithm approach. In addition, to achieve real-time characteristics, we have developed a special procedure that optimizes the number of generations in the evolutionary process.

The method has been applied to both non-redundant (Puma 60) and redundant arms (Robotics Research K1207 shown right) with good tracking accuracies.