Manipulability Ellipsoid

A geometric representation of a robot's ability to move or exert forces in different Cartesian directions at a given configuration. The velocity manipulability ellipsoid is derived from the Jacobian: directions with large ellipsoid axes correspond to easy motion; small axes indicate near-singularity. Yoshikawa's manipulability measure (det(JJᵀ)) is a scalar summary used for configuration optimization.