TABLE OF CONTENTS The physical integration of a robot in its environment must guarantee its optimal operation. That is why it is necessary to have relevant tools for assessing the performance of a robot. Consequently, the performance evaluation enables:
the choice of the best robots for certain tasks;
their ideal site position;
the calculation of sure and optimal trajectories with respect to some criteria (minimal cycle time, minimal torque actuators, maximum dexterity, etc.).
We note that these three problems are essentially geometric and kinematic in nature. As such, they must be treated through reliable analyses of the geometric and kinematic performances of robots.
In particular, access to the working points must be guaranteed. A simple solution consists of guaranteeing the inclusion of these points in the robot's work volume envelope. For example, for a planar robot with two revolute joints of parallel axes, the points must be within a disc with a radius L1 + L2, where L1 and L2 represent the two link lengths of the robot. However, this analysis is most often insufficient because it is necessary to consider the effect of the joint limits, as well as the proximity of obstacles. Figure 3.1 shows two different accessibility analyses for the planar robot. The first analysis (Figure 3.1a) shows the envelope of accessible points, without considering the joint limits. Hence, all points seem accessible. Figure 3.1b takes into account the joint limits ( ?120 ? ?1 ? 100 , ?120 ? ?2 ?
