EE 570: Laboratory 1

3D Manipulator Visualization and Forward Kinematics


Due: Mo 04/06/2009


Write a program to compute the forward (position and velocity) kinematics and display a manipulator in three dimensions. The program should take as inputs:

  1. the D-H Table and
  2. a series of correlated joint variables, q, and velocities, dq/dt.
The program should output or show:
  1. Homogeneous Transformation Matrix relating end-effector position and orientation to the base frame;
  2. display of frames 1 to n (with ability to turn on/off);
  3. end-effector linear and rotational velocities as vectors (with ability to turn on/off);
  4. link offsets and lengths as cylinders to visualize robot (see figure below as example, be able to turn on/off).
example visualizaton
Manipulators for which visualization and forward kinematics should work:
  1. Stanford
  2. SCARA
  3. PUMA 260
  4. Three-Link Planar RRR
  5. Two-Link Planar RP

Functions in Matlab that might be useful: cylinder, hgtransform, line and makehgtform. Also note there is a 'Rotate 3D' button in figures.

Test your forward kinematics for a variety of q, dq/dt including moving them one at a time, and turn in results (values plus visualization) for the cases qi = dqi/dt = 0; qi = dqi/dt = 1, and qi = dqi/dt = -1 for joint i revolute and 1 for joint i prismatic.