  We consider the speed planning problem for a robotic manipulator. In
particular, we present an algorithm for finding the time-optimal speed law
along an assigned path that satisfies velocity and acceleration constraints and
respects the maximum forces and torques allowed by the actuators. The addressed
optimization problem is a finite dimensional reformulation of the
continuous-time speed optimization problem, obtained by discretizing the speed
profile with N points. The proposed algorithm has linear complexity with
respect to N and to the number of degrees of freedom. Such complexity is the
best possible for this problem. Numerical tests show that the proposed
algorithm is significantly faster than algorithms already existing in
literature.
