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How to Build a High-Performance UR5 Inverse Kinematics Solver with IK-Geo

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How to Build a High-Performance UR5 Inverse Kinematics Solver With IK-Geo August 27, 2025

Inverse kinematics (IK) is a fundamental problem for robot arms: What joint angles achieve a desired hand pose?

UR5e robot following a straight line with all 8 IK solutions. The best choice of IK solution may depend on joint limits, singularities, collision avoidance, or dynamic performance.

IK remains a challenge for many practitioners using UR-style robots in industry and research, but we will show how to write a high-performance IK solver based on IK-Geo:

Fastest and most accurate IK solver in our testing with independently verified performance: >40x faster than IKFast, ~200x faster if only returning one solution, and errors on the order of machine epsilon (\(10^{-16}\)).

and IK solver in our testing with independently verified performance: >40x faster than IKFast, ~200x faster if only returning one solution, and errors on the order of machine epsilon (\(10^{-16}\)). Returns all solutions , allowing for optimal choices based on joint limits, singularities, obstacles, and dynamic performance.

, allowing for optimal choices based on joint limits, singularities, obstacles, and dynamic performance. Returns singular solutions , enabling smooth robot motion by avoiding transitions to joint-level control.

, enabling smooth robot motion by avoiding transitions to joint-level control. Easy to implement, debug, and modify.

Available in MATLAB, C++, Rust, and Python.

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