Robotics Kinematics and Dynamics/Description of Position and Orientation

Robotics Kinematics and Dynamics/Description

of Position and Orientation
Note: Some illustrative figures still have to be added.
In general, a rigid body in three-dimensional space has six degrees of freedom: three rotational and three
translational.
A conventional way to describe the position and orientation of a rigid
body is to attach a frame to it. After defining a reference coordinate
system, the position and orientation of the rigid body are fully
described by the position of the frame's origin and the orientation of its
axes, relative to the reference frame.

Rotation Matrix
A rotation matrix describes the relative orientation of two such
frames. The columns of this 3 3 matrix consist of the unit vectors
along the axes of one frame, relative to the other, reference frame.
Thus, the relative orientation of a frame
with respect to a
reference frame

is given by the rotation matrix

The position and orientation of a rigid body can

be described by attaching a frame to it.

Rotation matrices can be interpreted in two ways:

1. As the representation of the rotation of the first frame into the second (active interpretation).
2. As the representation of the mutual orientation between two coordinate systems (passive interpretation).
The coordinates, relative to the reference frame
respect to a frame

, of a point

, of which the coordinates are known with

with the same origin, can then be calculated as follows:

Properties
Some of the properties of the rotation matrix that may be of practical value, are:
1. The column vectors of
are normal to each other.
2. The length of the column vectors of
equals 1.
3. A rotation matrix is a non-minimal description of a rigid body's orientation. That is, it uses nine numbers to
represent an orientation instead of just three. (The two above properties correspond to six relations between the
nine matrix elements. Hence, only three of them are independent.) Non-minimal representations often have some
numerical advantages, though, as they do not exhibit coordinate singularities.
4. Since

is orthonormal,

Robotics Kinematics and Dynamics/Description of Position and Orientation

Elementary Rotations about Frame Axes

The expressions for elementary rotations about frame axes can easily
be derived. From the figure on the right, it can be seen that the rotation
of a frame by an angle about the z-axis, is described by:

Similarly, it can be shown that the rotation of a frame by an angle

about the x-axis, is given by:

Derived in exactly the same manner, the rotation of a frame by an angle

Rotation by an angle

about the z-axis.

about the y-axis, is described by:

Compound Rotations
Compound rotations are found by multiplication of the different elementary rotation matrices.
The matrix corresponding to a set of rotations about moving axes can be found by postmultiplying the rotation
matrices, thus multiplying them in the the same order in which the rotations take place. The rotation matrix formed
by a rotation by an angle about the z-axis followed by a rotation by an angle
about the moved y-axis, is then
given by:
The composition of rotations about fixed axes, on the other hand, is found by premultiplying the different
elementary rotation matrices.

Inverse Rotations
The inverse of a single rotation about a frame axis is a rotation by the negative of the rotation angle about the same
axis:

The inverse of a compound rotation follows from the inverse of the matrix product:

MATLAB Example
Note: These examples require the Robotics Toolbox to be properly installed.
theta = pi/2;
T_x = rotx(theta); % Returns a 4x4 pose matrix. The upper-left 3x3 submatrix is the
% rotation matrix representing a rotation by theta about the x-axis.
R_x = tr2rot(T_x); % Returns the 3x3 rotation matrix corresponding with T_x.
T_y = roty(theta); % A rotation about the y-axis.
T_z = rotz(theta); % A rotation about the z-axis.

Robotics Kinematics and Dynamics/Description of Position and Orientation

Euler Angles
Contrary to the rotation matrix, Euler angles are a minimal representation (a set of just three numbers, that is) of
relative orientation. This set of three angles describes a sequence of rotations about the axes of a moving reference
frame. There are, however, many (12, to be exact) sets that describe the same orientation: different combinations of
axes (e.g. ZXZ, ZYZ, and so on) lead to different Euler angles. Euler angles are often used for the description of the
orientation of the wrist-like end-effectors of many serial manipulator robots.
Note: Identical axes should not be in consecutive places (e.g. ZZX). Also, the range of the Euler angles should be
limited in order to avoid different angles for the same orientation. E.g.: for the case of ZYZ Euler angles, the first
rotation about the z-axis should be within
. The second rotation, about the moved y-axis, has a range of
. The last rotation, about the moved z-axis, has a range of

Forward Mapping
Forward mapping, or finding the orientation of the end-effector with respect to the base frame, follows from the
composition of rotations about moving axes. For a rotation by an angle about the z-axis, followed by a rotation by
an angle about the moved x-axis, and a final rotation by an angle about the moved z-axis, the resulting rotation
matrix is:
After writing out:

Note: Notice the shorthand notation:

stands for

stands for

, and so on.

Inverse Mapping
In order to drive the end-effector, the inverse problem must be solved: given a certain orientation matrix, which are
the Euler angles that accomplish this orientation?
For the above case, the Euler angles

and

are found by inspection of the rotation matrix:

Coordinate Singularities
In the above example, a coordinate singularity exists for
conditioned for small values of

. The above equations are badly numerically

: the first and last equaton become undefined. This corresponds with an alignment

of the first and last axes of the end-effector. The occurrence of a coordinate singularity involves the loss of a degree
of freedom: in the case of the above example, small rotations about the y-axis require impossibly large rotations
about the x- and z-axes.
No minimal representation of orientation can globally describe all orientations without coordinate singularities
occurring.

Robotics Kinematics and Dynamics/Description of Position and Orientation

Roll-Pitch-Yaw Angles
The orientation of a rigid body can equally well be described by three consecutive rotations about fixed axes. This
leads to a notation with Roll-Pitch-Yaw (RPY) angles.
Forward Mapping
The forward mapping of RPY angles to a rotation matrix similar to that of Euler angles. Since the frame now rotates
about fixed axes instead of moving axes, the order in which the different rotation matrices are multiplied is inversed:

After writing out:

Inverse Mapping
The inverse relationships are found from inspection of the rotation matrix above:

Note: The above equations are badly numerically conditioned for values of

near

and

Unit Quaternions
Unit quaternions (quaternions of which the absolute value equals 1) are another representation of orientation. They
can be seen as a compromise between the advantages and disadvantages of rotation matrices and Euler angle sets.

Homogeneous Transform
The notations above describe only relative orientation. The coordinates of a point, relative to a frame
and translated with respect to a reference frame

, rotated

, are given by:

This can be compacted into the form of a homogeneous transformation matrix or pose (matrix). It is defined as
follows:

This matrix represents the position and orientation of a frame

, is described by

whose origin, relative to a reference frame

, and whose orientation, relative to the same reference frame

, is described by the

rotation matrix
.
is, thus, the representation of a frame in three-dimensional space. If the coordinates of a point
respect to a frame

, then its coordinates, relative to

are known with

are found by:

This is the same as writing:

Note that the above vectors are extended with a fourth coordinate equal to one: they're made homogeneous.

Robotics Kinematics and Dynamics/Description of Position and Orientation

As was the case with rotation matrices, homogeneous transformation matrices can be interpreted in an active
("displacement"), and a passive ("pose") manner. It is also a non-minimal representation of a pose, that does not
suffer from coordinate singularities.

Compound Poses
If the pose of a frame
the resulting pose

is known, relative to

, whose pose is known with respect to a third frame

is found as follows:

MATLAB Example
x = 1;
y = 1.3;
z = 0.4;
T = transl(x,y,z); % Returns the pose matrix corresponding with a translation over
% the vector (x, y, z)'.

Finite Displacement Twist

A pose matrix is a non-minimal way of describing a pose. A frequently used minimal alternative is the finite
displacement twist:

Here,

and

are a valid set (any) of Euler angles, while

point on the rigid body.

and

are the coordinates of a reference

Article Sources and Contributors

Article Sources and Contributors

Robotics Kinematics and Dynamics/Description of Position and Orientation Source: http://en.wikibooks.org/w/index.php?oldid=2400794 Contributors: Adrignola, CountDown, Jan Boddez,
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Image Sources, Licenses and Contributors

Image:Rigid body attached frame.svg Source: http://en.wikibooks.org/w/index.php?title=File:Rigid_body_attached_frame.svg License: Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike
Contributors: Jan Boddez
Image:Rotation about z-axis.png Source: http://en.wikibooks.org/w/index.php?title=File:Rotation_about_z-axis.png License: Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike Contributors: Jan
Boddez

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