In this paper, an optimal robotic trajectory planning subjected to kinematic and dynamic constraints has been described. The kinematic parameters like jerk and dynamic parameters like torque rate mainly influence the smoothness of the travel of robot end-effector along the trajectory path. Therefore, these parameters are to be constrained for reducing the robot positional error. But it leads to vast increase in total travel time of robot which in the end affects productivity. Therefore, a multi-objective ant lion optimization technique has been applied to obtain the optimal trajectory with minimization time-jerk-torque rate for a 6-axis Kawasaki RS06L industrial robot. After implementation of the algorithm, the torque rate and jerk have been reduced considerably and the total travel time before and after optimization has been found to be 54.38 and 34.21 s. © 2020, Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.