A robotic manipulator, comprising: a base on which is mounted a manipulator arm comprised of a plurality of segments (106, 108, 110, 112) respectively connected by a plurality of joints which facilitate movement of the plurality of segments (106, 108, 110, 112) relative to the base responsive to one or more joint actuators (105, 107, 111); the manipulator arm having an end portion distal from the base to which one or more of a plurality of end effector appliances can be operably mounted for performing one or more manipulator arm operations; a control system which controls the operation of the joint actuators, and has access to a plurality of different end effector appliance parameter sets which are respectively associated with the plurality of different end effector appliances; and at least one interface which facilitates identification to the control system of one or more of the plurality of different end effector appliances which are installed on the manipulator arm; wherein said control system is responsive to the identification to dynamically modify a control algorithm which is used to control the plurality of joint actuators (105, 107, 111); and the installed end effector appliance parameter set further comprises a constraint function set comprised of one or more constraint functions which specify conditions under which certain displacement operations are permitted, wherein the one or more constraint functions are functionally dependent on θ which is the set of all manipulator arm joint angles θ 1, θ 2,..., θ n and the one or more of the displacement parameters; and the control system is configured to calculate an optimal joint velocity command for controlling the one or more joint actuators, the optimal joint velocity command determined by a constrained optimization which minimizes the difference between actions that are commanded through a user interface and actions that are permitted for the manipulator arm, given the set of constraint functions which are to be applied; characterized in that, each effector appliance is characterized in accordance with a set of parameters comprising: position offset p i (D i), rotation offset R(D i) re a, joint limits f i (θ, D i), and one or more attachment use constraint functions g i (θ, D i), wherein D i is a set of all possible position offsets variables for an i th end effector appliance; and wherein the joint constraint functions are combined into a cumulative joint limit function for the manipulator plus m attachments as f total (θ, D 1,..., D m)=f 0 (θ)∗Π m i=1 f i (θ, Di), wherein f total (θ, D1,..., Dm), specifies whether a manipulator attachment motion can be performed. a base on which is mounted a manipulator arm comprised of a plurality of segments (106, 108, 110, 112) respectively connected by a plurality of joints which facilitate movement of the plurality of segments (106, 108, 110, 112) relative to the base responsive to one or more joint actuators (105, 107, 111); the manipulator arm having an end portion distal from the base to which one or more of a plurality of end effector appliances can be operably mounted for performing one or more manipulator arm operations; a control system which controls the operation of the joint actuators, and has access to a plurality of different end effector appliance parameter sets which are respectively associated with the plurality of different end effector appliances; and at least one interface which facilitates identification to the control system of one or more of the plurality of different end effector appliances which are installed on the manipulator arm; wherein said control system is responsive to the identification to dynamically modify a control algorithm which is used to control the plurality of joint actuators (105, 107, 111); and the installed end effector appliance parameter set further comprises a constraint function set comprised of one or more constraint functions which specify conditions under which certain displacement operations are permitted, wherein the one or more constraint functions are functionally dependent on θ which is the set of all manipulator arm joint angles θ 1, θ 2,..., θ n and the one or more of the displacement parameters; and the control system is configured to calculate an optimal joint velocity command for controlling the one or more joint actuators, the optimal joint velocity command determined by a constrained optimization which minimizes the difference between actions that are commanded through a user interface and actions that are permitted for the manipulator arm, given the set of constraint functions which are to be applied; characterized in that, each effector appliance is characterized in accordance with a set of parameters comprising: position offset p i (D i), rotation offset R(D i) re a, joint limits f i (θ, D i), and one or more attachment use constraint functions g i (θ, D i), wherein D i is a set of all possible position offsets variables for an i th end effector appliance; and wherein the joint constraint functions are combined into a cumulative joint limit function for the manipulator plus m attachments as f total (θ, D 1,..., D m)=f 0 (θ)∗Π m i=1 f i (θ, Di), wherein f total (θ, D1,..., Dm), specifies whether a manipulator attachment motion can be performed.