16 ME7305 Industrial Robotics and Expert Systems Unit I

Unit I INTRODUCTION AND ROBOT KINEMATICS

Definition need and scope of Industrial robots – Robot anatomy – Work volume – Precision movement – End effectors – Sensors.
Robot Kinematics – Direct and inverse kinematics – Robot trajectories – Control of robot manipulators – Robot dynamics –
Methods for orientation and location of objects.

INTRODUCTION
Robots are devices that are programmed to move parts, or to do work with a tool. Robotics is a
multidisciplinary engineering field dedicated to the development of autonomous devices, including manipulators
and mobile vehicles.
Roboticists develop man-made mechanical devices that can move by themselves, whose motion must be
modelled, planned, sensed, actuated and controlled, and whose motion behaviour can be influenced by
“programming”. Robots are called “intelligent” if they succeed in moving in safe interaction with an unstructured
environment, while autonomously achieving their specified tasks.
This definition implies that a device can only be called a “robot” if it contains a movable mechanism,
influenced by sensing, planning, actuation and control components. It does not imply that a minimum number of
these components must be implemented in software, or be changeable by the “consumer” who uses the device; for
example, the motion behaviour can have been hard-wired into the device by the manufacturer.
So, the presented definition, as well as the rest of the material in this part of the WEBook, covers not just
“pure” robotics or only “intelligent” robots, but rather the somewhat broader domain of robotics and automation.
This includes “dumb” robots such as: metal and woodworking machines, “intelligent” washing machines, dish
washers and pool cleaning robots, etc. These examples all have sensing, planning and control, but often not in
individually separated components. For example, the sensing and planning behaviour of the pool cleaning robot
have been integrated into the mechanical design of the device, by the intelligence of the human developer.
Robotics is, to a very large extent, all about system integration, achieving a task by an actuated mechanical
device, via an “intelligent” integration of components, many of which it shares with other domains, such as systems
and control, computer science, character animation, machine design, computer vision, artificial intelligence,
cognitive science, biomechanics, etc. In addition, the boundaries of robotics cannot be clearly defined, since also its
“core” ideas, concepts and algorithms are being applied in an ever increasing number of “external” applications,
and, vice versa, core technology from other domains (vision, biology, cognitive science or biomechanics, for
example) are becoming crucial components in more and more modern robotic systems.

DEFINITION
The term comes from a Czech word, robota, meaning "forced labor." The word robot first appeared
in a 1920 play by Czech writer Karel Capek, R.U.R.: Rossum's Universal Robots. In the play, the robots eventually
overthrow their human creators.
An automatically controlled, reprogrammable, multipurpose, manipulator programmable in three or more
axes, which may be either, fixed in place or mobile for use in industrial automation applications.
An industrial robot is defined by ISO as an automatically controlled, reprogrammable, multipurpose
manipulator programmable in three or more axes. The field of robotics may be more practically defined as the study,
design and use of robot systems
for manufacturing (a top-level definition relying on the prior definition of robot). Typical applications of
robots include welding, painting, assembly, pick and place (such as packaging, palletizing and SMT), product
inspection, and testing; all accomplished with high endurance, speed, and precision.

NEED AND SCOPE OF INDUSTRIAL ROBOTS

Industrial Applications
Industrial robots are used to assemble the vehicle parts, as shown in the figure. As the assembly of the machine
parts is a repetitive task to be performed, the robots are conveniently used instead of using mankind (which is
costlier and less précised compared to robots.)
Auto Industry:
The auto industry is the largest users of robots, which automate the production of various components and then
help, assemble them on the finished vehicle. Car production is the primary example of the employment of large and
complex robots for producing products. Robots are used in that process for the painting, welding and assembly of
the cars. Robots are good for such tasks because the tasks can be accurately defined and must be performed the
same every time, with little need for feedback to control the exact process being performed.

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Material Transfer, Machine Loading and Unloading

There are many robot applications in which the robot is required to move a work part or other material from one
location to another. The most basic of these applications is where the robot picks the part up from one position and
transfers it to another position. In other applications, the robot is used to load and/or unload a production machine
of some type.
Material transfer applications are defined as operations in which the primary objective is to move a part from one
location to another location. They are usually considered to be among the most straightforward of robot
applications to implement. The applications usually require a relatively unsophisticated robot, and interlocking
requirements with other equipment’s are typically uncomplicated. These are the pick ad place operations. The
machine loading and unloading applications are material handling operations in which the robot is used to service
a production machine by transferring parts to and/or from the machine.
Robots have been successfully applied to accomplish the loading and/or unloading function in the production
operations
 Die casting
 Plastic molding
 Forging and related operations
 Machining operations
 Stamping press operations
The other industrial applications of robotics include processing operations such as spot welding, continuous arc
welding; spray coating, also in assembly of machine parts and their inspection.
Roboticarm
The most developed robot in practical use today is the robotic arm and it is seen in applications throughout the
world. We use robotic arms to carry out dangerous work such as when dealing with hazardous materials. We use
robotic arms to carry out work in outer space where man cannot survive and we use robotic arms to do work in the
medical field such as conducting experiments without exposing the research. Some of the most advanced robotic
arms have such amenities as a rotating base, pivoting shoulder, pivoting elbow, rotating wrist and gripper fingers.
All of these amenities allow the robotic arm to do work that closely resembles what a man can do only without the
risk.
Medical Applications
Medical robotics is a growing field and regulatory approval has been granted for the use of robots in minimally
invasive procedures. Robots are being used in performing highly delicate, accurate surgery, or to allow a surgeon
who is located remotely from their patient to perform a procedure using a robot controlled remotely. More recently,
robots can be used autonomously in surgery.
Future Applications
We can theorize a likely profile of the future robot based on the various research activities that are currently being
performed. The features and capabilities of the future robot will include the following (it is unlikely that all future
robots will possess all of the features listed).
•Intelligence: The future robot will be an intelligent robot, capable of making decisions about the task it performs
based on high-level programming commands and feedback data from its environment.
•Sensor capabilities: the robot will have a wide array of sensor capabilities including vision, tactile sensing, and
others. Progress is being made in the field of feedback and tactile sensors, which allow a robot to sense their actions
and adjust their behavior accordingly. This is vital to enable robots to perform complex physical tasks that require
some active control in response to the situation. Robotic manipulators can be very precise, but only when a task can
be fully described.
•Tele presence: it will possess a tele presence capability, the ability to communicate information about its
environment (which may be unsafe for humans) back to a remote” safe” location where humans will be able to make
judgments and decisions about actions that should be taken by the robots.
•Mechanical design: the basic design of the robot manipulator will be mechanically more efficient, more reliable,
and with improved power and actuation systems compared to present day robots. Some robots will have multiple
arms with advanced control systems to coordinate the actions of the arms working together. The design of robot is
also likely to be modularized, so that robots for different purposes can be constructed out of components that are
fairly standard.
•Mobility and navigation: future robots will be mobile, able to move under their own power and navigation systems.
•Universal gripper: robot gripper design will be more sophisticated, and universal hands capable of multiple tasks
will be available.

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•Systems integration and networking: robots of the future will be “user friendly” and capable of being interfaced
and networked with other systems in the factory to achieve a very high level of integration.

Industrial Applications
We will divide our presentation of future industrial applications into three areas:
 Manufacturing
 Hazardous and inaccessible environments,
 Service industries
Future Manufacturing Applications
The present biggest application areas for industrial robots are in the spot-welding and the materials handling and
machine loading categories. The handling of materials and machine tending are expected to continue to represent
important applications for robots, but the relative importance of spot welding is expected to decline significantly.
The most significant growth in shares of manufacturing applications is expected to be in assembly and inspection
and in arc welding.
Robotic welding is one of the most successful applications of industrial robot manipulators. In fact, a huge
number of products require welding operations in their assembly processes.Welding can in most cases impose
extremely high temperatures concentrated in small zones. Physically, that makes the material experience extremely
high and localized thermal expansion and contraction cycles, which introduce changes in the materials that may
affect its mechanical behavior along with plastic deformation. Those changes must be well understood in order to
minimize the effects.
The majority of industrial welding applications benefit from the introduction of robot manipulators, since most of
the deficiencies attributed to the human factor is removed with advantages when robots are introduced. This should
lead to cheaper products since productivity and quality can be increased, and production costs and manpower can
be decreased.
Hazardous and Inaccessible Nonmanufacturing Environments
Manual operations in manufacturing that are characterized as unsafe, hazardous, uncomfortable, or unpleasant for
the human workers who perform them have traditionally been ideal candidates for robot applications. Examples
include die-casting, hot forging, spray-painting, and arc welding. Potential manufacturing robot applications that
are in hazardous or inaccessible environments include the following:
 Construction trades
 Underground Coal mining: The sources of dangers in this field for humans include fires, explosions,
poisonous gases, cave-ins, and underground floods.
 Hazardous utility company operations: The robots have a large scope of application in the nuclear wastage
cleaning in nuclear plants, in the electrical wiring, which are dangerous and hazardous to humans.
 Military applications
 Fire fighting
 Undersea operations: The Ocean represents a rather hostile environment for human beings due principally
to extreme pressures and currents. Even when the humans venture into the deep, they are limited in terms
of mobility and the length of time they can remain underwater. It seems much safer and more comfortable
to assign aquatic robots to perform whatever task must be done underwater.
 Robots in space: Space is another inhospitable environment for humans, in some respects the opposite of
the ocean. Instead of extremely high pressures in deep waters, there is virtually no pressure in outer space.
Therefore, this field is also of large importance as far as the robotics is concerned.
Service Industry and Other Applications:
In addition to manufacturing robot applications, robot applications that are considered hazardous, there are also
opportunities for applying robots to the service industries. The possibilities cover a wide spectrum of jobs that are
generally non-hazardous:
 Teaching robots
 Retail robots
 Fast-food restaurants
 Garbage collection in waste disposal operations
 Cargo handling and loading and distribution operations
 Security guards
 Medical care and hospital duties
 Agricultural robots
 House hold robots
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Medical Applications
The medical applications of robotics include Nano robotics, swarm robotics, also surgeries and operations using the
knowledge of robotics.
Nano robotics is the technology of creating machines or robots at or close to the scale of a nanometer (10-9 meters).
Nanorobots (nanobots or nanoids) are typically devices ranging in size from 0.1-10 micrometers and constructed
of nanoscale or molecular components. As no artificial non-biological nanorobots have so far been created, they
remain a hypothetical concept at this time.
Swarm robotics is a new approach to the coordination of multirobot systems, which consist of large numbers of
relatively simple physical robots. Potential application for swarm robotics includes tasks that demand for extreme
miniaturization (Nano robotics, microbotics), on the one hand, as for instance distributed sensing tasks in micro
machinery or the human body. On the other hand, swarm robotics is suited to tasks that demand for extremely
cheap designs, for instance a mining task, or an agricultural foraging task. Artists are using swarm robotic
techniques to realize new forms of interactive art installation.
Robots For Paralyzed Patients
One of the interesting and concerning future applications of robotics in medical field include service to paralyzed
people who electric wheelchairs to move around. But now a robotic device can help paralyzed patients to walk on
treadmills. After training, some of the patients, who rebuild confidence, have also regained muscle power and can,
walk over short distances. The robot helps the paralyzed patients in their daily routine such as helping them to take
bath, changing their clothes, and feeding them. A robot doesn’t force food into their mouth but it takes the spoon to
till the patient’s mouth.
ROBOT ANATOMY
The anatomy of robot is also known as structure of robot. The basic components or sections in anatomy of robots
are as follows.
The RIA (Robotics Industries Association) has officially given the definition for Industrial Robots. According to RIA,
“An Industrial Robot is a reprogrammable, multifunctional manipulator designed to move materials, parts, tools, or
special devices through variable programmed motions for the performance of a variety of tasks.”

The Anatomy of Industrial Robots deals with the assembling

of outer components of a robot such as wrist, arm, and body.
Before jumping into Robot Configurations, here are some of
the key facts about robot anatomy.
End Effectors: A hand of a robot is considered as end
effectors. The grippers and tools are the two significant
types of end effectors. The grippers are used to pick and
place an object, while the tools are used to carry out
operations like spray painting, spot welding, etc. on a work
piece.
Robot Joints: The joints in an industrial robot are helpful to
perform sliding and rotating movements of a component.

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Manipulator: The manipulators in a robot are developed by the integration of links and joints. In the body and arm,
it is applied for moving the tools in the work volume. It is also used in the wrist to adjust the tools.
Kinematics: It concerns with the assembling of robot links and joints. It is also used to illustrate the robot motions.
Joints and Links
The manipulator of an industrial robot consists of a series of joints and links. Robot anatomy deals with the study
of different joints and links and other aspects of the manipulator's physical construction. A robotic joint provides
relative motion between two links of the robot. Each joint, or axis, provides a certain degree-of-freedom (dof) of
motion. In most of the cases, only one degree-of-freedom
is associated with each joint. Therefore, the robot's
complexity can be classified according to the total
number of degrees-of-freedom they possess.
Each joint is connected to two links, an input link and an
output link. Joint provides controlled relative movement
between the input link and output link. A robotic link is
the rigid component of the robot manipulator. Most of
the robots are mounted upon a stationary base, such as
the floor. From this base, a joint-link numbering scheme
may be recognized as shown in Figure 7.5.1. The robotic
base and its connection to the first joint are termed as
link-0. The first joint in the sequence is joint-1. Link-0 is
the input link for joint-1, while the output link from joint-
1 is link-1—which leads to joint-2. Thus link 1 is,
simultaneously, the output link for joint-1 and the input
link for joint-2. This joint-link-numbering scheme is
further followed for all joints and links in the robotic
systems.
Nearly all industrial robots have mechanical joints that can be classified into following five types as shown in Figure

a) Linear joint (type L joint)

The relative movement between the input link and the output link is a translational sliding motion, with the axes of
the two links being parallel.
b) Orthogonal joint (type U joint)
This is also a translational sliding motion, but the input and output links are perpendicular to each other during the
move.

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c) Rotational joint (type R joint)

This type provides rotational relative motion, with the axis of rotation perpendicular to the axes of the input and
output links.
d) Twisting joint (type T joint)
This joint also involves rotary motion, but the axis or rotation is parallel to the axes of the two links.
e) Revolving joint (type V-joint, V from the “v” in revolving)
In this type, axis of input link is parallel to the axis of rotation of the joint. However the axis of the output link is
perpendicular to the axis of rotation.
Common Robot Configurations
Basically the robot manipulator has two parts viz. a body-and-arm assembly with three degrees-of-freedom; and a
wrist assembly with two or three degrees-of-freedom.
For body-and-arm configurations, different combinations of joint types are possible for a three-degree-of-freedom
robot manipulator. Five common body-and-arm configurations are outlined in figure.

Common Body-and-Arm configurations

a. Polar configuration
It consists of a sliding arm L-joint, actuated relative to the body, which rotates around both a vertical axis (T-joint),
and horizontal axis (R-joint).
b. Cylindrical configuration
It consists of a vertical column. An arm assembly is moved up or down relative to the vertical column. The arm can
be moved in and out relative to the axis of the column. Common configuration is to use a T-joint to rotate the column
about its axis. An L-joint is used to move the arm assembly vertically along the column, while an O-joint is used to
achieve radial movement of the arm.
c. Cartesian co-ordinate robot
It is also known as rectilinear robot and x-y-z robot. It consists of three sliding joints, two of which are orthogonal
O-joints.
d. Jointed-arm robot
It is similar to the configuration of a human arm. It consists of a vertical column that swivels about the base using a
T-joint. Shoulder joint (R-joint) is located at the top of the column. The output link is an elbow joint (another R
joint).

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e. SCARA
Its full form is ‘Selective Compliance Assembly Robot Arm'. It is similar in construction to the jointer-arm robot,
except the shoulder and elbow rotational axes are vertical. It means that the arm is very rigid in the vertical
direction, but compliant in the horizontal direction.
Robot wrist assemblies consist of either two or three degrees-of-freedom. A typical three-degree-of-freedom wrist
joint is depicted in Figure 7.5.4. The roll joint is accomplished by use of a T-joint. The pitch joint is achieved by
recourse to an R-joint. And the yaw joint, a right-and-left motion, is gained by deploying a second R-joint.

Robotic wrist joint

The SCARA body-and-arm configuration typically does not use a separate wrist assembly. Its usual operative
environment is for insertion-type assembly operations where wrist joints are unnecessary. The other four body-
and-arm configurations more-or-less follow the wrist-joint configuration by deploying various combinations of
rotary joints viz. type R and T.
Work Envelope
It is the shape created when a manipulator reaches forward, backward, up
and down. These distances are determined by the length of a robot's arm and the
design of its axes. Each axis contributes its own range of motion.
A robot can only perform within the confines of this work envelope. Still,
many of the robots are designed with considerable flexibility. Some have the ability
to reach behind themselves. Gantry robots defy traditional constraints of work
envelopes. They move along track systems to create large work spaces.
Technical Features of an Industrial Robot
The technical features of an industrial robot determine its efficiency and effectiveness
at performing a given task. The following are some of the most important among these
technical features.
WORK VOLUME/WORKSPACE
The robot tends to have a fixed and limited geometry. The work envelope is the
boundary of positions in space that the robot can reach. For a Cartesian robot (like an
overhead crane) the workspace might be a square, for more sophisticated robots the
workspace might be a shape that looks like a ‘clump of intersecting bubbles’.

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PRECISION MOVEMENT
The precision with which the robot can move the end of its wrist is a critical consideration in most applications. In
robotics, precision of movement is a complex issue, and we will describe it as consisting of three attributes:
1. Control resolution
2. Accuracy
3. Repeatability
Control Resolution - This is the smallest change that can be measured by the feedback sensors, or caused by the
actuators, whichever is larger. If a rotary joint has an encoder that measures every 0.01 degree of rotation, and a
direct drive servo motor is used to drive the joint, with a resolution of 0.5 degrees, then the control resolution is
about 0.5 degrees (the worst case can be 0.5+0.01).
Accuracy - This is determined by the resolution of the workspace. If the robot is commanded to travel to a point
in space, it will often be off by some amount, the maximum distance should be considered the accuracy.
Repeatability - The robot mechanism will have some natural variance in it. This means that when the robot is
repeatedly instructed to return to the same point, it will not always stop at the same position.

END EFFECTORS
An end effector is usually attached to the robot's wrist, and it allows the robot to accomplish a specific task. This
means that end effectors are generally custom-engineered and fabricated for each different operation. There are
two general categories of end effectors viz. grippers and tools.
Grippers grasp and manipulate the objects during the work cycle. Typically objects that grasped are the work
parts which need to be loaded or unloaded from one station to another. Grippers may be custom-designed to suit
the physical specifications of work parts. Various end-effectors, grippers are summarized in Table

The robot end effecter may also use tools. Tools are used to perform processing operations on the work part.
Typically, the robot uses the tool relative to a stationary or slowly-moving object. For example, spot welding, arc
welding, and spray painting robots use a tool for processing the respective operation. Tools also can be mounted at
robotic manipulator spindle to carry out machining work such as drilling, routing, grinding, etc.
SENSORS IN ROBOTICS:
There are generally two categories of sensors used in robotics. These are sensors for internal purposes and for
external purposes. Internal sensors are used to monitor and control the various joints of the robot. They form a
feedback control loop with the robot controller. Examples of internal sensors include potentiometers and optical
encoders, while tachometers of various types are deployed to control the speed of the robot arm.

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External sensors are external to the robot itself, and are used when we wish to control the operations of the robot.
External sensors are simple devices, such as limit switches that determine whether a part has been positioned
properly, or whether a part is ready to be picked up from an unloading bay.
Various sensors used in robotics are outlined in Table.
Sensor technologies for robotics

ROBOT KINEMATICS:
Robot arm kinematics deals with the analytic study of the motion of a robot arm with respect to a fixed
reference coordinate system as a function of time.
The mechanical manipulator can be modelled as an open loop articulated chain with several rigid links
connected in series by either revolute‘or prismatic‘ joints driven by the actuators.
For a manipulator, (the position and orientation of the end-effector are derived from the given joint angles and link
parameters, the scheme is called the forward kinematics problem.
If, on the other hand, the joint angles and the different configuration of the manipulator are derived from
the position and orientation of the endeffector, the scheme is called the reverse kinematics problem.
Representing the Position Considering the revolute type of joint only, the position of the end- effector can be
represented by the joint angles, 0 02,,. 0, as,
The position of the end-effector can also be defined in world space as,

Forward Kinematics
A manipulator is composed of serial links which are affixed to each other revolute or prismatic joints from
the base frame through the end-effector. Calculating the position and orientation of the end-effector in terms of the
joint variables is called as forward kinematics. In order to have forward kinematics for a robot mechanism in a
systematic manner, one should use a suitable kinematics model. Denavit-Hartenberg method that uses four
parameters is the most common method for describing the robot kinematics.

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These parameters ai-1, α −1i , di and θi are the link length, link twist, link offset and joint angle, respectively.
A coordinate frame is attached to each joint to determine DH parameters. Zi axis of the coordinate frame is pointing
along the rotary or sliding direction general manipulator.
Inverse Kinematics
The inverse kinematics problem of the serial manipulators has been studied for many decades. It is needed
in the control of manipulators. Solving the inverse kinematics is computationally expansive and generally takes a
very long time in the real time control of manipulators. Tasks to be performed by a manipulator are in the Cartesian
space, whereas actuators work in joint space. Cartesian space includes orientation matrix and position vector.
However, joint space is represented by joint angles. The conversion of the position and orientation of a manipulator
end-effector from Cartesian space to joint space is called as inverse kinematics problem. There are two solutions
approaches namely, geometric and algebraic used for deriving the inverse kinematics solution, analytically. Let’s
start with geometric approach.
Direct Kinematics
Forward kinematics refers to the use of the kinematic equations of a robot to compute the position of the end-
effector from specified values for the joint parameters.

Joint Forward Position &

Link Parameters OP
Angles Kinematics orientation of end
effectors

Inverse Kinematics
The reverse process that computes the joint parameters that achieve a specified position of the end-effector is
known as inverse kinematics.

Position & Forward Joint

Link Parameters OP
orientation of end Kinematics Angles
effectors
ROBOT TRAJECTORIES
Trajectory planning is moving from point A to point B while avoiding collisions over time. This can be computed in
both discrete and continuous methods. Trajectory planning is a major area in robotics as it gives way to autonomous
vehicles.
Trajectory planning is sometimes referred to as motion planning and erroneously as path planning.
Trajectory planning is distinct from path planning in that it is parametrized by time. Essentially trajectory planning
encompasses path planning in addition to planning how to move based on velocity, time, and kinematics.
1. Artificial Potential Field
2. Sampling Based Planning
3. Grid Based Planning
4. Reward-Based Planning
CONTROL OF ROBOT MANIPULATORS:
Control problem: definition of the input signals for the joints (e.g. torques or actuator input voltages) in order to
achieve a predefined behavior for the manipulator.
The achievable performances can be very different because of:
 The many control techniques available to solve such a problem
 The hardware used to implement the control algorithms
 The mechanical configuration of the robot (anthropomorphic, Cartesian, ...)
The robot performances are mainly influenced by the mechanical design and by the actuation system.
For example:
 The Cartesian (three axis control) configuration decouples the dynamics of the joints;
 DC motor with gearboxes have a linear dynamic that results “decoupled” from the non-linear dynamics of
the robot. However, gearboxes usually introduce nonlinear effects such as dead-zones, friction, elasticity, ...;
 Direct Drive motors on one hand ensure better performances and do not introduce non-linearity’s in the
transmission chain; on the other hand a more relevant dynamic coupling between joints is present, and the
(nonlinear) load dynamics is directly applied to the actuators without reduction effects.
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Control problems:
Control of the robot’s motion (position control schemes);
joint-space control
workspace control.
Control of the interaction with the workspace (force control schemes).
Control schemes:
Decentralized (or independent) control schemes (SISO)
Centralized control schemes (MIMO).
ROBOT DYNAMICS
It is concerned with the relationship between the forces acting on a robot mechanism and the accelerations
they produce. Typically, the robot mechanism is modelled as a rigid-body system, in which case robot dynamics is
the application of rigid-body dynamics to robots.
Our task in Dynamics of Manipulators is to find the torque to be generated by the torque actuators at the
manipulator joints. The functions of the torque variation depend upon the trajectory to be followed by the
manipulator, masses of links, friction in link joints and force applied by or payload at the end-effector.
Problems to Be Solved
Dynamic analysis of manipulator has two types of problems to be solved.
The trajectory with variation of position, velocity and acceleration is given and torques required at
manipulator joints to move along the desired trajectory are to be found.
Torques variations are given and the motion of manipulator has to be found. It may involve finding position,
velocity and also acceleration.
The position, velocity and acceleration here also denote the respective angular quantities.
METHODS FOR ORIENTATION AND LOCATION OF OBJECTS
Industrial Robots result in increased levels of automation in industrial processes. Robot use started in
repetitive, simple tasks, and now they are also being used also in precision works. This transition happened because
of the sophisticated synthesis of robots and inclusion of electronics and computer control. An industrial robot is
designed such that it can be programmed to be used in different applications.
The mechanics of the industrial robots and manipulators is not a new field of engineering in itself. It is actually a
combination of different branches of engineering. The mechanics, static and dynamic analysis and design, comes
from mechanical engineering, and the analysis of motion and path planning of the manipulators is done with the
help of mathematical tools.
For the design and analysis of the manipulators, the basic thing to keep track of and to plan is the position as well
as the orientation of objects. The objects for which we are concerned are the components of the manipulators, like
their links, joints, and tools, and also the objects in the space around the manipulator as well as all the objects with
which the manipulator interacts.
For the effective design of the manipulator, the position and orientation of the objects concerned need to be
represented suitably such that it can be mathematically processed to make the manipulator move in the desired
manner.
Attaching Frame to the Object
To define the position and orientation of the object and to keep track of its movement a coordinate frame is rigidly
attached to the object. The motion of the object, that is, the change in position and orientation of the object is now
given by the frame attached to the object.
Reference Coordinate Frame
A Reference Coordinate Frame is defined with respect to which the position and orientations of all the other frames
attached to the objects are described.
Transformation of Frames
We can define any frame as the reference frame. For convenience we keep changing the reference frames. So the
position and orientation of the frames attached to the objects need to be transformed from one reference frame to
the other. There are mathematical methods for the transformation of the frames.
The article series on Position and Orientation of manipulators dealing with the methods for describing
position and orientation of the objects related to the manipulators and different techniques for transformation of
the position and orientation for different reference frames will soon follow up under Robotics topic in the Bright
Hub Mechanical Engineering Channel.

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