Manipulator Kinematics

Dr. T. Asokan
[email protected]
Contents
■ Kinematics
■ Object Location and Motion
■ Transformation Matrices
■ Homogeneous Transformations
■ Forward Kinematics
■ Inverse Kinematics
■ Differential Relationships

Introduction to Robotics 2
Kinematics- Fundamentals

Introduction to Robotics 5
Object Location and Motion

Contents:

Object location
- Position of a point in space
- Location of a rigid body in space
- Homogeneous transformation matrix
Object Motion
-Translation (Transformation Matrix) and Inverse
-Basic Rotation (Transformation Matrices) and Inverse.
-General Rotation
Examples.
-Properties of homogeneous transformation matrix.
Examples.
 Given an object in a physical world,
■ how to describe its position and orientation, and

■ how to describe its change of position and orientation

due to motion
are two basic issues we need to address before talking
about having a robot moving physical objects around.

The term location refers to the position and

orientation of an object.

Introduction to Robotics 7
 Coordinate frames

If ‘p’ is a vector in Rn, and X={x1, x2, x3 .…xn} be a complete

orthonormal set of Rn, then the coordinates of p with respect
to X are denoted as [p]x and are defined as

The complete orthonormal set X is sometimes called an

orthonormal coordinate frame.
X2

The ‘kth’ coordinate of p wrt X is

[p]2x p

[p]1x X1
Introduction to Robotics 8
Coordinate Transformation P
m2 m2
P

m3

m1 m3
f3
P m1
Represent position of p wrt fixed frame
f={f1,f2,f3} m3
m2

m1 f2

Fixed link
f1
The two sets of coordinates of P are given by
[p]M=[p.m1, p.m2, p.m3]
[p]F=[p.f1, p.f2, p.f3]

The coordinate transformation problem is to find the coordinates of p wrt

F, given the coordinates of p wrt M.

Introduction to Robotics 9
Coordinate Transformation Matrix
Let F={f1, f2,f3,.. fn} and M={m1, m2,m3,.. mn } be
coordinate frames of Rn with F being an orthonormal
frame. Then for each point p in Rn,

The matrix A is known as Coordinate transformation matrix.

f3 P
m2
m3

m1 f2

f1 Fixed
Introduction to Robotics
link 10
Inverse Coordinate Transformation

Let F and M be two orthonormal coordinate frames in Rn, having

the same origin, and let A be the coordinate Transformation matrix
that maps M coordinates to F coordinates, then the transformation
matrix which maps F coordinates into M coordinates is given by A-1
, where

A-1=AT

Introduction to Robotics 11
 Rotations
f3 m3
m2
In order to specify the position and
orientation of the mobile tool in terms
of a coordinate frame attached to the m1
fixed base, coordinate transformations m3

involving both rotations and

translations are required. m2 f2

m1 Rotation and Translation of

coordinate frame
f1

Introduction to Robotics 12
 Fundamental rotations f3

m3’
If the mobile coordinate frame is obtained from m3
the fixed coordinate frame F by rotating M m2’
about one of the unit vectors of F, then the
resulting coordinate transformation matrix is m2 f2
called a fundamental rotation matrix.
m1
f1 m1’
In the space R3, there are 3 possibilities.

Introduction to Robotics 13
 f3
Fundamental rotations

m3’
m3
m2’

m2 f2
m1m1’

f1
The kth row and the kth column of Rk(φ) are
identical to the k th row and the k th column of
identity matrix. In the remaining 2x2 matrix, the
diagonal terms are while the off diagonal
terms are . The sign of the off diagonal
Pattern term above the diagonal is (-1)k.

Introduction to Robotics 14
 Composite Rotations

A Sequence of fundamental rotations about the unit vectors

cause composite rotations.

Algorithm for composite rotation

1. Initialise rotation matrix to R=I, which corresponds

to F and M being coincident
2. If the mobile frame M is rotated by an amount φ
about the kth unit vector of F, then pre-multiply R by
Rk(φ). -> [Rk(φ).R]
3. If the mobile frame M is rotated by an amount , φ
about it’s own kth vector, then post-multiply R by
Rk(φ). -> [R . Rk(φ)]
4. If there are more rotations go back to 2. The
resulting matrix maps M to F

Introduction to Robotics 15
Yaw-Pitch-Roll Transformation matrix

Roll

pitch
yaw

Introduction to Robotics 16
 Class Work

Suppose we rotate tool about the fixed axes, starting with yaw of π/2,
followed by pitch of –π/2 and finally, a roll of π/2, what is the resulting
composite rotation matrix?

Suppose a point P at the tool tip has mobile coordinates [p]M= [0,0,.6]T, Find
[p]F following YPR transformation of 45, 60 and 90 degrees respectively.

Introduction to Robotics 17
Homogeneous coordinates
■ We need pure rotations and translations to characterize the
position and orientation of a point relative to the coordinate
frame attached to the base.
■ While a rotation can be represented by a 3x3 matrix, it is not
possible to represent translation by the same.
■ We need to move to a higher dimensional space, the four
dimensional space of homogeneous coordinates.

Definition: Let q be a point in R3, and let F be an orthonormal coordinate

frame of R3 . If σ is any non zero scale factor, then the homogeneous
coordinates of q with respect to F are denoted as [q]F and defined:

In robotics we use σ=1 for convenience

Introduction to Robotics 18
 Homogeneous Transformation matrix
If a physical point in three-dimensional space is expressed in terms of
its homogeneous coordinates and we want to change from one
coordinate frame to another, we use a 4x4 homogeneous
transformation matrix.
In general T is

The 3x3 matrix R is a rotation matrix

P is a 3x1 translation vector
η is a perspective vector, set to zero

In terms of a robotic arm, P represents the position of the tool tip, R its
orientation.

Introduction to Robotics 19
■ The fundamental operations of rotations and translations can each be
regarded as special cases of the general 4x4 homogeneous
transformation matrix.

Using homogeneous coordinates, translations also can be

represented by 4x4 matrices.
In terms of homogeneous coordinate frames, the translation of
M can be represented by a 4x4 matrix, denoted Tran (p), where
m2

f3
p3

m2
p2

Tran (p) is known as the fundamental homogeneous f1

p1
m1
Translation matrix m3
f2
Introduction to Robotics m2 20
 Inverse Homogeneous Transformation

If T be a homogeneous transformation matrix with rotation R and

translation p between two orthonormal coordinate frames and if η=0,σ=1,
then the inverse transformation is:

Composite Homogeneous Transformations

Example: For the sequence of actions translation of M along f2 by 3 units, and then rotate M about
f3 by 180 degrees, fine the composite transformation matrix

T = R (180,3) T(3, 2) I

Introduction to Robotics 21
 M along f2 by 3 units, and then rotate M about f3 by
180 degrees,

Home work

Reverse the order of transformation and find

out the transformation matrix

22
 Class Work
Suppose we rotate tool about the fixed axes, starting with yaw of -π/2,
translation of 10cm about X, followed by pitch of π/2, translation of
20cm about Z and finally, a roll of π/2 and translation of 30cm about Y,
what is the resulting composite homogeneous transformation matrix?

Introduction to Robotics 24
Why transformation matrices are important?

25
Robot Morphology
Basic characteristics:

- Kinematics chain
- Degree of freedom

- Architecture
- Work space
- Payload
- Precision
 Kinematic Chain: Manipulators

Serial Manipulators

Parallel Manipulators
Dr. T. Asokan
 Degrees of Freedom (dof)
In general, degrees of freedom (DOF) are the set of independent
displacements that specify completely the displaced or deformed
position of the body or system.
■ In robotics, degrees of freedom is often used to describe the number
of directions that a robot can move a joint.

■ A human arm is considered to have 7 DOF. A shoulder gives pitch, yaw

and roll, an elbow allows for pitch, and a wrist allows for pitch, yaw
and roll. Only 3 of those movements would be necessary to move the
hand to any point in space, but people would lack the ability to grasp
things from different angles or directions.

■ A robot (or object) that has mechanisms to control all 6 physical DOF is
said to be holonomic. A robot (or object) that has mechanisms to
control all 6 physical DOF is said to be holonomic.

■ An object with fewer controllable DOF than total DOF is said to be non-
holonomic, and an object with more controllable DOF than total DOF
(such as the human arm) is said to be redundant.