EE 5325

Introduction to Robotics

Homework 1

Fahad Mirza
ID: 1001003682
February 12, 2015

1. From examples given in class, pick one robotic manipulator and one mobile robot. In each
case, write a half page description of the system, including a brief picture, a geometrical
description of the degrees of freedom, a photograph, a list of hardware and software subsystems,
and examples of how the robots were used. Use your own words.

youBot

The Kuka youBot platform from Kuka Laboratories is a perfect example for manipulators. It consist of
both an omnidirectional mobile platform and a 5-axis manipulator with a two finger gripper. However,
base, gripper and arm can be used individually if necessary. It is equipped with a PC running on Linux.
ROS (Robotic Operating System) Fuerte is used to control the platform and an additional EtherCAT
interface is present for additional sensors or other electronic systems integration. Because of the open
interfaces it is ideally used for research and education.
The serial link manipulator has 5 degrees of freedom (DOF) with a payload of 0.5 kg and speed of 90/s.
The actuators on the arm runs on 24V.
The base has 3 degrees of freedom. Because of the four omni direction wheels it is holonomic. It can
carry upto 20kg with a speed of 0.8m/s.
The onboard PC has Mini ITX PC-Board with embedded intel Atom Dual-Core CPU, 2 GB RAM, 32
GB SSD.
As mentioned earlier because of the uses in the area of research and education, it is used in the field of
logistics, navigation, motion planning etc. Also it is possible to extend with additional sensors. For
example in our lab, NGS, it is used as testbench for our in-house sensors to study pHRI application.

Mobile Manipulators

RK-1 is a WiFi enabled mobile robot, based on Arduino hardware/software architecture, made by My
Mobile Robots, a one man company based on London. It is controllable by iOS and Android platform.
Arduino is an open source development hardware based on Atmels microcontroller. The chips have
factory programmed bootloader so there is no need of a separate programmer. You can program through
the UART communication pins, which makes it possible to program wirelessly, through wifi. This makes
the robot truly mobile. The project was funded by kickstarter crowd sourcing website.
This robot comes with Arduino chip i.e. Atmels ATmega328P chip with Arduino bootloader, a wifi
module to provide wireless control, DC motors, H-bridge controllers, tank tracks and LiPo battery. The
software to control the robot from iOS and Android platform is available in the app store. Unused pins of
the mcu is available to interface with additional sensors or electronic system.
The main application of this robot is in the area of education. This robot introduce students with the
basics of mobile robots.

2. Download and familiarize yourself with the MATLAB Robotics Toolbox, a third party toolbox
developed by Peter I. Corke, available for free. Find the manual (robot.pdf). Dont worry about
not understanding the concepts yet. Report on whether the code runs by doing a basic demo
(type rtdemo at Matlab command prompt, and take a screenshot for your submission).

Fig: Toolbox Menu

Fig: Animation of Puma 560

3.

In a sentence or two, define kinematics, workspace, trajectory and degree of freedom.

Considering a rigid body in an n-dimensional space, how many degrees of freedom does it have?
Use the fact that a rigid body can be defined by positions and orientations, and that orientations
are part of the SO(n) matrix group. Verify your results for n=2, 3.
Kinematics: In terms of Robotics, kinematics describes the motion of the manipulator without
consideration of the forces and torques causing the motion.
Workspace: It is the total volume swept out by the end effector as the manipulator executes all possible
motions.
Trajectory: It is the process of breaking down a desired movement task into discrete motions and then
determine the time history of the manipulator along that given path.
Degrees of Freedom: It is the minimum number of parameters required to specify the configuration of an
object, in our case, of a manipulator.
Rigid body in a two dimension space have 3 DOF. X, Y and orientation, . For a three dimension space,
it will have 6 DOF. Three for translational motion and three for orientation.

4. Show that SO(3) forms a group under matrix multiplication, by proving that multiplication of
rotation and homogenous matrices is closed, associative and that every matrix has an inverse
that is a member of the SO(3).
Solution: Let, (3), then = =

So, (1 2 ) 1 2 = 2 1 1 2 = 2 2 =

So we can say that, 1 2 (3) for all 1 , 2 (3)

For 1 , 2 , 3 (3), (1 2 )3 = 1 (2 3 )

Also as we know, = = , so = 1

5. If a matrix satisfies = , show that the column vectors of

of unit length and are

mutually perpendicular.

11

Let = 21
31

12
22
32

13
23 then = implies that,
33
1 1
2 1
3 1

1 2
2 2
3 2

1 3
1 0 0
2 3 = 0 1 0
0 0 1
3 3

Equating the equation shows that column vectors of R of unit length and mutually perpendicular.

6. Referring to the figure, suppose that the tip of a single link travels a distance between two

points. A linear axis would travel the distance while a rotational link would travel through an
arc length as shown. Using law of cosines, show that the distance is given by
which is of course less than .

= 2(1 cos )

With 10-bit accuracy, = 1, and range of being 90, what is the resolution of the linear
link? If the shaft is connected to an 8-bit encoder, what is the control resolution obtained (for the
linear link)? Explain how the encoder can help to improve the accuracy of the system.
Solution: If a, b, and c are the lengths of a triangle and A, B, and C are the opposite angles then from the
law of cosines we know that, 2 = 2 + 2 2ab cos
By replacing, = = , = and = we get:

2 = 2 + 2 22 cos

= 22 (1 cos ) = 2(1 cos )

With 10bit accuracy, = 1 and = 90 , resolution for linear link =

2

For 8bit, resolution = 28 = 5.52 103meters.

12(10)
210

= 1.38 103meters

Normally encoders are placed on the link joints. With higher resolution we can track the motor movement
in any direction more accurately. It is beneficial for both linear and rotational actuators.