Devices, systems, and methods for providing commanded movement of an end effector of a manipulator concurrent with a desired movement of one or more joints of the manipulator according to one or more consolidated null-space objectives. The null-space objectives may include a joint state combination, relative joint states, range of joint states, joint state profile, kinetic energy, clutching movements, collision avoidance movements, singularity avoidance movements, pose or pitch preference, desired manipulator configurations, commanded reconfiguration of the manipulator, and anisotropic emphasis of the joints. Methods include calculating multiple null-space movements according to different null-space objectives, determining an attribute for each and consolidating the null-space movements with a null-space manager using various approaches. The approaches may include applying weighting, scaling, saturation levels, priority, master velocity limiting, saturated limited integration and various combinations thereof.

This multi-joint link mechanism has a driving joint driven by a driving source and a follower joint driven by the movement of the driving joint. First, an open-loop link mechanism that allows the position and pose of a workpiece to be varied is selected from a multi-joint link mechanism. The amount of movement/rotation of each of the joints constituting the selected open-loop link mechanism is derived. The derived amounts of movement/rotation of each of the joints of the open-loop link mechanism are set as fixed values to derive the amount of movement/rotation of each of the joints of a closed-loop link mechanism composed of non-selected joints and at least some of the joints of the open-loop link mechanism.

One or more methods, apparatuses, and systems to perform inverse kinematics to move an end effector of a kinematic chain from a starting location toward a target location and to move mid-joints in response thereto according to a subspace of a mid-joint, wherein the subspace is determined according to objects determined around adjacent joints of the mid-joint. The kinematic chain may comprise branches and the methods, apparatuses, and systems may determine an execution order of the branches.