Addis Ababa Science and Technology University (Aastu) Industrial Automation and Introduction To Robotics

Addis Ababa Science and Technology University
(AASTU)
Industrial Automation and Introduction to Robotics

Chapter-2: Kinematics of Industrial Robot
1 Kinematics
2 Homogeneous coordinate transformation of rigid body
2D-Transformation
2D-Translation
2D-Rotation
2D-Rototranslation
3D-Transformation
3D-Translation
3D-Rotation
3D-Rototranslation
Composition of Rototranslation
Homogeneous Transformation
3 Velocity Analysis
4 Acceleration Analysis
5 Denavit-Hartenberg (H-D) Convention
6 Jacobian
7 Singularity
Kinematics
Kinematics
Robot kinematics refers the description of the geometric characteris-
tics of the robot’s motion (position, velocity, acceleration), without
considering the forces or moments that cause the motion.
Forward kinematics: Calculating the position and orientation of the

end effector in terms of the joint variables
Inverse Kinematics: The conversion of the position and orientation

of a manipulator end effector from Cartesian space to joint space.
Kinematics
Example: For a 2-DoF (RR) planer manipulator shown below, It has

two revolute joints and the length of link 1 and 2 are a1 and a2 ,
respectively. Derive the forward kinematics equations
The coordinates of end effector position is p (px and py ) are

determined as follows.
px = a1 cosθ1 + a2 cos(θ1 + θ2 )
py = a1 sinθ1 + a2 sin(θ1 + θ2 )
Kinematics
Exercise: Drive the equation which express the inverse kinematics

of the 2-dof robot given below
Fin the value of θ1 and θ2 if the length of the links 0.3 and the end
effector position is (0.4,0.4)
sol1 = [25.53, 39], sol2 = [64.47, −39]

Kinematics
Example: Find the forward/direct kinematics of the figure given

below
Example: Compute the inverse kinematics of the two link planar

(PP) manipulators given above.
Kinematics
Exercise: Consider the 3-DoF (RRR) planar robot arm shown below.
The arm consists of one fixed link and three movable links that move
within the plane. All the links are connected by revolute joints whose
joint axes are all perpendicular to the plane of the links. Find the
kinematics equations of the system
Kinematics
Exercise: The following RPR planar robot arm, obtain the kinemat-
ics equations relating the end effector position and orientation to
the joint displacements.
Homogeneous coordinate transformation of rigid body

A rigid body is a solid body in which deformation is zero or so small
it can be neglected. The distance between any two given points on
a rigid body remains constant in time regardless of external forces
exerted on it.
Homogeneous transformation of a rigid body combine the operations

of rotation and translation into a single matrix multiplication.
Homogeneous transformation matrix is used to derive the forward

kinematic equations of rigid manipulators.
In order to represent the relative position and orientation of one

rigid body with respect to another, we will rigidly attach coordinate
frames to each body, and then specify the geometric relationships
between these coordinate frames.
2D-Transformation
2D-Translation
The objective is to find out the (x,y) coordinate of point p with
respect to frame o0 x0 y0 given the coordinate of point p in frame
o1 x1 y1 .
Let p 1 represent point p in frame o1 x1 y1 and the coordinate of p

with respect to frame o0 x0 y0 is p 0 and given as
p 0 = p 1 + d10
where d10 is the translation of the two frames
2D-Transformation
2D-Rotation
Frame o1 x1 y1 is obtained by rotating frame o0 x0 y0 by an angle θ.

The relative orientation of the two frames is specified by the angle
of rotation θ.
xp0 = cosθxp1 − sinθyp1

yp0 = sinθxp1 + cosθyp1

xp0 cosθ −sinθ xp1
=
yp0 sinθ cosθ yp1
Find the coordinate of p in frame o0 x0 y0 if the coordinate of p is

(1,3) in reference frame o1 x1 y1 and the rotation angle is 45 degree
in counterclockwise direction.
2D-Transformation
The general way to find the orientation is to specify the unit vectors
projection of frame o1 x1 y1 axes with respect to frame o0 x0 y0 axes.
R10 = x10 | y10

where x10 and y10 are the coordinates in frame o0 x0 y0 of unit vectors
x1 and y1 , respectively.
In the two dimensional case, it is straightforward to compute the

entries of this matrix.

cosθ −sinθ
x10 = , y10 =
sinθ cosθ
Therefore the rotational matrix from frame-1 to frame-0 R10 is given

as
0 cosθ −sinθ
R1 =
sinθ cosθ
2D-Transformation
Thus, R10 is a matrix whose column vectors are the coordinates of

the unit vectors along the axes of frame o1 x1 y1 expressed relative to
frame o0 x0 y0 .
Recalling that the dot product of two unit vectors gives the projec-
tion of one onto the other

0 x1 .x0 0 y1 .x0
x1 = , y1 =
x1 .y0 y1 .y0
which can be combined to obtain the rotation matrix

0 x1 .x0 y1 .x0
R1 =
x1 .y0 y1 .y0
The orientation of frame o0 x0 y0 with respect to the frame o1 x1 y1 is

constructed as
x .x y .x
R01 = 0 1 0 1
x0 .y1 y0 .y1
2D-Transformation
Properties of the Rotation Matrix
R −1 = R T
The columns (and therefore the rows) of R are mutually
orthogonal
Each column (and therefore each row) of R is a unit vector
detR = 1
2D-Transformation
2D-Rototranslation
The coordinates of point p with respect to o0 x0 y0 is
p 0 = R10 p 1 + d10
where R10 is the transformation matrix from frame o1 x1 y1 to frame

o0 x0 y0 , p 1 is the coordinate of point p with respect to frame o1 x1 y1 ,
and d10 is the translation vector between the the two frames.
2D-Transformation
Exercise: From the figure below the coordinates of point p with

respect to o1 x1 y1 is (-1,1). Find the coordinate of point p with
respect to o0 x0 y0 frame.
3D-Transformation
3D-Translation
The objective is to find out the (x,y,z) coordinate of point p with
respect to frame o0 x0 y0 z0 given the coordinate of point p in frame
o1 x1 y1 z1 .
Let p 1 is the point in refernce frame o1 x1 y1 z1 and the coordinate

of the same point p 0 in o0 x0 y0 z0 is given by
p 0 = p 1 + d10
where d10 is the translation of the two frames
3D-Transformation
3D-Rotations
The projection technique described above scales nicely to the three
dimensional case.
In three dimensions, each axis of the frame o1 x1 y1 z1 is projected onto
coordinate frame o0 x0 y0 z0 . The resulting rotation matrix is given by
 
x1 .x0 y1 .x0 z1 .x0
R10 = x1 .y0 y1 .y0 z1 .y0 
x1 .z0 y1 .z0 z1 .z0
3D-Transformation
Suppose the frame o1 x1 y1 z1 is rotated through an angle θ about the

z0 -axis, and it is desired to find the resulting transformation matrix
R10 . From the figure we see that
x1 .x0 = cosθ, y1 .x0 = −sinθ

x1 .y0 = sinθ, y1 .y0 = cosθ
and
z1 .z0 = 1
while all other dot products are zero.
Thus the rotation matrix from frame 1 to frame 0 R10 has a simple
form  
cosθ −sinθ 0
R10 =  sinθ cosθ 0
0 0 1
3D-Transformation
Similarly the basic rotation matrices representing rotations about

the x and y-axes are given as
 
1 0 0
Rx,θ = 0 cosθ −sinθ
0 sinθ cosθ
and  
cosθ 0 sinθ
Ry ,θ = 0 1 0 
−sinθ 0 cosθ
3D-Transformation
3D-Rototranslation
The coordinates of p 1 with respect to o0 x0 y0 z0 is
p 0 = R10 p 1 + d10
It is not important in which order the rotation and translation are

performed.
The composition law states that, in order to transform the coordi-
nates of a point p from its representation p 2 in frame o2 x2 y2 z2 to
its representation p 0 in frame o0 x0 y0 z0 , we may first transform to
its coordinates p 1 in frame o1 x1 y1 z1 using R21 and then transform
p 1 to p 0 using R10 .
Rigid body is a system of particles for which the distances between

the particles remain unchanged
Rigid body motion is a pure translation together with a pure rotation.
From the figure given above, rigid body 1 and 2 are attached to co-
ordinate frame o1 x1 y1 z1 and o2 x2 y2 z2 , respectively and both frames
are related to the frame o0 x0 y0 z0 by rototranslational transforma-
tions.
A given point p can then be represented by coordinates specified

with respect to any of these three frames: p 0 , p 1 and p 2 .
If we have two rigid motions the coordinate p 0 and p 1 are given by
p 0 = R10 p 1 + d10 and p 1 = R21 p 2 + d21

The third rigid motion is described by
p 0 = R10 R21 p 2 + R10 d21 + d10
Since the relationship between p 0 and p 2 is also a rigid motion, we

can equally describe it as
p 0 = R20 p 2 + d20
From the above equations we can immediately infer
R20 = R10 R21 , d20 = d10 + R10 d21
The above two equations reperesent the orientation and position of

p 2 with respect to o0 x0 y0 z0 .
It is important to remember that the order in which the rotation

matrices are multiplied together is crucial.
It is a representation of both translation and rotation of a rigid body
motion by a single matrix.
Remember, the affine transformation between two points is given as
p 0 = R10 p 1 + d10
The homogeneous representation of a point p 0 and p 1 is given by,
0 1
0 p 1 p
P = ,P =
1 1
P 0 and P 1 are homogeneous representation of the point p 0 and p 1 .
The homogeneous transformation matrix (H10 ) between P 0 and P 1
is
0
R1 d10 1

0
P = P
0 1
P 0 = H10 P 1
Therefore, the homogeneous matrix (H) is

R d
H=
0 1
Using the fact that R is orthogonal it is an easy exercise to show

that the inverse transformation H −1 is given by
T
−R T d

−1 R
H =
0 1
Similarly, the composition of rototranslation matrix is computed as
H20 = H10 H21

0
R1 d10 R21 d21
0 1
R1 R2 R10 d21 + d10
0
R2 d20

0
H2 = = =
0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1
where 0 denotes the row vector (0, 0, 0).

Exercise: From the figure below compute the transformation matrix

from o2 x2 y2 z2 frame to o0 x0 y0 z0 if α is 30 degree.
Velocity Analysis
Velocity Analysis
From the 3D-rototranslation motion, the coordinates of p 1 with re-
spect to o0 x0 y0 z0 is
p 0 = R10 p 1 + d10
Velocity Analysis
The velocity of point p with respect to frame o0 x0 y0 z0 is

ṗ 0 = Ṙ10 p 1 + R10 ṗ 1 + d˙10
where d˙10 is the velocity of the origin of reference frame o1 x1 y1 z1
and ṗ 1 = 0 because it is the velocity of point p with respect to
reference o1 x1 y1 z1 . The above equation can be reduced to
ṗ 0 = Ṙ10 p 1 + d˙10
In homogeneous transformation form the velocity is given as
Ṙ1 d˙10
0
0 0 1 0
ṗ = Ḣ1 p , Ḣ1 =
0 0
If point p is given in reference frame o0 x0 y0 z0 , the velocity of point
p with respect to o0 x0 y0 z0 is
−1 0 −1 0
ṗ 0 = Ḣ10 H10 p , where p 1 = H10 p
−1
where Ḣ10 H10 is the velocity transformation matrix for all points
which are given in reference frame o0 x0 y0 z0
Velocity Analysis
The velocity transformation matrix V10 is given by

" #
T T
0 0 0 −1 Ṙ10 R10 −Ṙ10 R10 d10 + d˙10
V1 = Ḣ1 H1 =
0 0
T
where Ṙ10 R10 is skew symmetric matrix and for a given vector a =
(ax , ay , az )T , we define the skew symmetric matrix S(a) as
 
0 −az ay
S = az
 0 −ax 
−ay ax 0
and for nxn matrix S is said to be skew symmetric if and only if
S + ST = 0
Acceleration Analysis
The technique for velocity analysis described above works nicely for
acceleration analysis, and the acceleration of point p with respect
to frame o0 x0 y0 z0 is
p̈ 0 = R̈10 p 1 + Ṙ10 ṗ 1 + d¨10
where d¨10 is the acceleration of the origin of reference frame o1 x1 y1 z1

and ṗ 1 = 0 because it is the velocity of point p with respect to
reference o1 x1 y1 z1 . The above equation can be reduced to
p̈ 0 = R̈10 p 1 + d¨10
In homogeneous transformation form
R̈1 d¨10
0
p̈ 0 = Ḧ10 p 1 , Ḧ10 =
0 0
If point p is given in reference frame o0 x0 y0 z0 , the acceleration of

point p with respect to o0 x0 y0 z0 is
−1 0 −1 0
p̈ 0 = Ḧ10 H10 p , where p 1 = H10 p
−1
where Ḧ10 H10 is acceleration transformation matrix of point p
which are given with respect to reference frame o0 x0 y0 z0 .
The acceleration transformation matrix A01 is given by

" #
−1 R̈ 0 R 0 T −R̈ 0 R 0 T d 0 + d¨0
A01 = Ḧ10 H10 = 1 1 1 1 1 1
0 0
T
But R̈10 R10 is not skew symmetric matrix.
Denavit-Hartenberg (H-D) Convention
Denavit-Hartenberg (D-H) Convention
It is a commonly used convention for selecting frames of reference

in robotic applications.
Denavit-Hartenberg (D-H) notations are widely used to describe the

kinematic model of a robot.
D-H convention has four parameters, namely the Link Length ai ,

Twist Angle αi , Link offset di and the Joint angle θi .
In this convention, each homogeneous transformation H is repre-

sented as a product of four basic transformations
Assigning the coordinate frames
Here are the procedures to assign a reference frame for each joint
of a robot
1 Place the z-axis along the joint axis of rotation, or translation.

2 Place x-axis which is common perpendicular or point of
intersection between two consecutive pair of zi−1 and zi -axes.
If there is no unique perpendicular, then x goes in from zi−1
to zi
3 Use the right hand rule to define the y axis.
4 The xi axis must intersect the zi−1 axis
End effector/ Tool frame assignment
This constructive procedure works for frames 0,...,n − 1 in an n-link

robot.
To complete the construction, it is necessary to specify frame n.

The final coordinate system on xn yn zn is commonly referred to as
the end-effector or tool frame.
In most contemporary robots the final joint motion is a rotation of

the end effector by θn and the final two joint axes, zn−1 and zn ,
coincide.
In this case, the transformation between the final two coordinate

frames is a translation along zn−1 by a distance dn followed by a
rotation of θn about zn−1 .
End effector/ Tool frame assignment

From the figure above, the four DH parameters are defined as fol-
lows:
1 di (Joint offset)
This is measured as the distance between Xi−1 and Xi along
Zi−1 .
2 θi (Joint angle)
This is measured as the angle between Xi−1 and Xi about
Zi−1 . Rotation is positive when it is made counter clockwise.
3 ai (Link length)
This is measured as the distance between the common normals
to axes Zi−1 and Zi along Xi .
4 αi (Twist angle)
This is measured as the angle between the axes, Zi−1 and Zi ,
about axis Xi to be taken positive when rotation is made
counter clockwise.
D-H parameters
The transformation matrix from reference frame i + 1 to i is given

as
DH = Rotz,θ Transz,d Transx,a Rotx,α
   
cosθ −sinθ 0 0 1 0 0 0 1 0 0 a
 sinθ cosθ 0 0 0 1 0 0  0 1 0 0
DH =   0
  
0 1 0 0 0 1 d  0 0 1 0
0 0 0 1 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 1
 
1 0 0 0
0 cosα −sinα 0
 
0 sinα cosα 0
0 0 0 1
 
cosθ −sinθcosα sinθsinα acosθ
 sinθ cosθcosα −cosθsinα asinθ 
DH =   0

sinα cosα d 
0 0 0 1
Positive sense for αi and θi

Jacobian
Jacobian
It relates the joint velocities with the end effector velocities of the
robot.
For a two link RR robot the Jacobian relates how movement of the
joint elements of q = [θ1 , θ2 ]T causes movement of the end effector
elements of x = [px , py ]. Formally, a Jacobian is a set of partial
differential equations:
∂x
J=
∂q
With a bit of manipulation we can get a neat result:
ẋ = J q̇,
where ẋ and q̇ represent the time derivatives of x and q.

Jacobian
Energy equivalence and Jacobians

Without considering friction, the amount of energy spent at the
joint and end effector is the same. For the planar two-link RR robot
the joint angle positions be denoted q = [θ1 , θ2 ]T , and end-effector
position be denoted x = [px , py ]T . Power is the application of force
over a distance
P = FT x ẋ,
where Fx is the force applied to the hand, and ẋ is the velocity of
the hand. Rewriting the above in terms of joint-space gives:
P = FT
q q̇,
where Fq is the torque applied to the joints, and q̇ is the angular

velocity of the joints.
Using the above two equations with Jacobian:
FT T
q q̇ = Fx ẋ,
Jacobian
Fq = J T Fx .
where J is the Jacobian for the end-effector of the robot, and Fq
represents the forces in joint-space that affect movement of the
hand.
This says that Jacobian can also be used to calculate what the forces
in joint space should affect a desired set of forces in end-effector
space.
For a two link RR manipulator the Jacobian is determined from the

partial derivative of end-effector position. The linear velocity part
of the Jacobian is: " #
∂x ∂x
∂θ1 ∂θ2
J= ∂y ∂y
∂θ1 ∂θ2
Jacobian

−L1 sin(θ1 ) − L2 sin(θ1 + θ2 ) −L2 sin(θ1 + θ2 )
J=
L1 cos(θ1 ) + L2 cos(θ1 + θ2 ) L2 cos(θ1 + θ2 )
Example: Given the two joint angle velocities with arm configuration
π π
q = 3π 4 q̇ = 10 π
8 10
and arm segment lengths L1 = L2 = 1, Find the linear velocity of

the end-effector. Ans = [−0.8026, −0.01830]
Example: For the same robot in the above example, calculate the
torques required if the x and y coordinate of end-effector forces are
given by:
1
Fx =
1
Ans = [−1.3066, −1.3066].
Singularity
Singularity
Singularity represents configuration from which certain directions of
motion are unattainable.
Singularity occur in configurations when joint axis align in a way

that reduces the ability of the arm to position the end-effector.
Boundary singularity: when a serial robot is fully extended.
To determine the singularity of the robot, make the determinant of

the Jacobian zero (J(q) = 0).
Example: For a two link RR robot the Jacobian is given by

−L1 sin(θ1 ) − L2 sin(θ1 + θ2 ) −L2 sin(θ1 + θ2 )
J(q) =
L1 cos(θ1 ) + L2 cos(θ1 + θ2 ) L2 cos(θ1 + θ2 )
Singularity
Therefore, at singularity Det(J(q)) = 0
sinθ2 = 0
For a two link RR robot the singularity position is at θ2 = 0 degree

and θ2 = 180 degree.
The effects of manipulator singularities are

1 Bounded end-effector velocities may correspond to unbounded
joint velocities.
2 Bounded joint torques may correspond unbounded
end-effector forces.
3 Singularities may correspond to points on the boundary of the
manipulator workspace (to points of maximum reach of the
manipulator).

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Industrial Automation and Introduction to Robotics

Forward kinematics: Calculating the position and orientation of the

Inverse Kinematics: The conversion of the position and orientation

Example: For a 2-DoF (RR) planer manipulator shown below, It has

The coordinates of end effector position is p (px and py ) are

Exercise: Drive the equation which express the inverse kinematics

sol1 = [25.53, 39], sol2 = [64.47, −39]

Example: Find the forward/direct kinematics of the figure given

Example: Compute the inverse kinematics of the two link planar

Homogeneous coordinate transformation of rigid body

Homogeneous transformation of a rigid body combine the operations

Homogeneous transformation matrix is used to derive the forward

In order to represent the relative position and orientation of one

Let p 1 represent point p in frame o1 x1 y1 and the coordinate of p

Frame o1 x1 y1 is obtained by rotating frame o0 x0 y0 by an angle θ.

xp0 = cosθxp1 − sinθyp1

Find the coordinate of p in frame o0 x0 y0 if the coordinate of p is

R10 = x10 | y10

In the two dimensional case, it is straightforward to compute the

Therefore the rotational matrix from frame-1 to frame-0 R10 is given

Thus, R10 is a matrix whose column vectors are the coordinates of

which can be combined to obtain the rotation matrix

The orientation of frame o0 x0 y0 with respect to the frame o1 x1 y1 is

Properties of the Rotation Matrix

where R10 is the transformation matrix from frame o1 x1 y1 to frame

Exercise: From the figure below the coordinates of point p with

Let p 1 is the point in refernce frame o1 x1 y1 z1 and the coordinate

Suppose the frame o1 x1 y1 z1 is rotated through an angle θ about the

x1 .x0 = cosθ, y1 .x0 = −sinθ

Similarly the basic rotation matrices representing rotations about

It is not important in which order the rotation and translation are

Rigid body is a system of particles for which the distances between

Rigid body motion is a pure translation together with a pure rotation.

A given point p can then be represented by coordinates specified

If we have two rigid motions the coordinate p 0 and p 1 are given by

p 0 = R10 p 1 + d10 and p 1 = R21 p 2 + d21

The third rigid motion is described by

p 0 = R10 R21 p 2 + R10 d21 + d10

Since the relationship between p 0 and p 2 is also a rigid motion, we

From the above equations we can immediately infer

R20 = R10 R21 , d20 = d10 + R10 d21

The above two equations reperesent the orientation and position of

It is important to remember that the order in which the rotation

Therefore, the homogeneous matrix (H) is

Using the fact that R is orthogonal it is an easy exercise to show

Similarly, the composition of rototranslation matrix is computed as

H20 = H10 H21

where 0 denotes the row vector (0, 0, 0).

Exercise: From the figure below compute the transformation matrix

The velocity of point p with respect to frame o0 x0 y0 z0 is

The velocity transformation matrix V10 is given by

and for nxn matrix S is said to be skew symmetric if and only if

p̈ 0 = R̈10 p 1 + Ṙ10 ṗ 1 + d¨10

where d¨10 is the acceleration of the origin of reference frame o1 x1 y1 z1

In homogeneous transformation form

If point p is given in reference frame o0 x0 y0 z0 , the acceleration of

The acceleration transformation matrix A01 is given by

Denavit-Hartenberg (D-H) Convention

It is a commonly used convention for selecting frames of reference

Denavit-Hartenberg (D-H) notations are widely used to describe the

D-H convention has four parameters, namely the Link Length ai ,

In this convention, each homogeneous transformation H is repre-