Interval Analysis and Robotics

Interval analysis is a relatively new mathematical tools that allows one to deal with problems that may have to be solved numerically with a computer. Examples of such problems are system solving and global optimization but numerous other problems may be addressed as well. This approach has the following general advantages: • it allows to find solutions of a problem only within some finite domain • numerical computer round-off errors are taken into account so that the solutions are guaranteed A further inherent property that is of interest for robotics problems is that this approach allows one to deal with the uncertainties that are unavoidable in robotics. Although the basic principles of interval analysis are easy to understand and to implement, this approach will be efficient only if additional methods are used and if the problem at hand is formulated appropriately. In this paper we will emphasize various robotics problems that have been solved with interval analysis, many of which are currently beyond the reach of other mathematical approaches.