Introduction to Robotics

Oussama Khatib

Lecture 1 & 2
Manipulator

A ball joint has 3 degree of freedom. In the manipulator diagram, ot can

be showed as 3 revolute joins without any link (zero dimension links)
in between.
Configuration parameters

We can define each link with three vectors with respect to the base link.
Each vector will have 3 parameters and therefore for each link there will
9 parameters. So total, for n links it will be 9n parameters.

This is a huge number.

But this 1 DOF link will allow only

Generalized coordinates one dimensional free movement.
So it will restrict 5 degrees of freedom

Needs 3 position coordinates and 3

orientation coordinates to describe this
link in the space.
However for robots with floating base link, the number of system DOF will
be n+6. 6 is the DOF of the base link. In case humanoid, the base links DOF
are not actuated which makes it difficult to control a humanoid.

Joint coordinates

Joint space

Operational space

Redundancy
A robot is said to be redundant
if the no of DPF of the end -
effector is less than the number
of DOF of the robot (system).

For a 3D manipulator, a robot

DOF more than 6 makes it
redundant as end effector DOF is
6 (3 orintation, 3 position).
Redundancy is important to avoid obstacles. It is desirable to have multiple
joint configuration to reach the same point.

Degree of redundancy =

Position of a point in space

Rotation matrix
Dot product of X unit vector of B with
unit vectors of the frame A.
Mapping a point to a different frame:
OPERATORS
Mapping: Changing description from frame to frame
Operators: Moving points within the same frame.
General Oprerator