What is the common process to place a robotic arm gripper

Question

I implemented a simulation for a robotic arm that has to grab things. This arm has a 6DOF structure and a simple gripper on the top. I made a simple CCD IK algorithm to control the arm. I can use it in two ways:

1. Compute the position of the last joint of the arm before the hand part (which means 1 end-effector). Then use an analytical method to place the hand in a good orientation.
2. Compute directly the arm, and the hand position by giving the CCD IK algorithm 2 end-effectors that are the 2 finger of the hand.

What is the most used method for a grabbing arm robot ? I'm not willing to find a solution, just to know what people usually do.

Answer 1

If your robot has a spherical wrist, meaning all three axes intersect at a point, you can use wrist partitioning to solve your problem. With wrist partitioning, you use the first three joints of the robot to place the center of the wrist at a desired position, then use the three wrist axes to orient the end effector. It becomes two simpler problems vs one difficult problem.