Problems with trajectory planning - unnatural and unnecessary movements or no path can be found

[a55xk1]

Hi, I am using the UR Driver (built from source) with ROS2 Humble and Ubuntu 22.04.
I start the driver with the following command:
ros2 launch ur_robot_driver ur_control.launch.py ur_type:=ur3 robot_ip:=172.17.0.1 launch_rviz:=false
and use the default MoveIt configuration:
ros2 launch ur_moveit_config ur_moveit.launch.py ur_type:=ur3 robot_ip:=172.17.0.1 launch_rviz:=true.

I have written a simple C++ file with poses that the robot should approach. I defined the poses like this:

geometry_msgs::msg::Pose first_pose;
first_pose.position.x = 0.10047;
first_pose.position.y = -0.19126;
first_pose.position.z = 0.2834; 
first_pose.orientation.x = 0.96639;
first_pose.orientation.y = -0.24424;
first_pose.orientation.z = -0.037185;
first_pose.orientation.w = 0.071153;
move_group.setPoseTarget(first_pose);
move_group.move();
...

The planned trajectory from one pose to another is very unnatural. The robot makes unnecessary turns and sometimes even drives through the ground. By adding a collision object, driving through the ground is avoided, but sometimes no path can be found, even though the pose is right next to the previous one.

Ideally, the robot should approach the next pose with as little movement as possible. However, even a movement in the z-direction causes some joints to rotate by 360 degrees. Similarly, if only the base needs to rotate by a few degrees with minimal movements in the other joints, the robot twists into strange positions.

When I plan and execute the trajectory in RViz to move from one pose to another, the robot moves "linearly" as expected.

I also tried specifying joint angles instead of poses:

std::vector<double> joint_values = {-0.6632, -1.9548, 2.3562, -2.0071, -1.5533, -0.6458};
move_group.setJointValueTarget(joint_values);
move_group.move();
...

With this approach, it works perfectly. The robot makes natural movements, and the planned trajectories are smooth.

Has anyone else experienced the issue where no intuitive paths are planned, and the robot makes many unnecessary movements when using poses? Any ideas on how to solve this?

Thanks in advance.