Mechanical systems

Mechanical systems that allow a rigid body (here called an end-effector) to move with
respect to a fixed base, play a very important role in numerous applications. A rigid
body in space can move in various ways, in translation or rotary motion. These are
called its degrees of freedom. The total number of degrees of freedom of a rigid body in
space cannot exceed 6 (for example three translatory motions along mutually orthogonal
axes, and three rotary motions around these axis). The position and the orientation of the
end-effector (here called its pose) can be described by its generalized coordinates; these
are usually the coordinates of a specific point of the end-effector and the angles that
define its orientation, but may be any other set of parameters that allows one to define
uniquely the pose od the end-effector. As soon as it is possible to control several
degrees of freedom of the end-effector via a mechanical system, this system can be
called a robot.

The last few years have witnessed an important development in the use of robots in the
industrial world.

Industrial robots are mechanical devices which, to a certain degree, replicate human
motions. They are used whenever there is a need to reduce the danger to a human,
provide more strength or accuracy than a human, or when continuous operation is
required. Most robots are stationary, but some move throughout the workplace
delivering materials and supplies.

The computer that controls the robot must be programmed by a technician, to "teach"
the machine to complete the required motion. The areas where robots perform better
than humans are in accuracy and repeatability. Many robots can repeat motions with an
accuracy of a few thousandths of an inch and operate 24 hours a day. Because of this
tireless, accurate work, robots are a growing segment of industrial equipment purchases.

SERIAL MANIPULATOR

Serial manipulators are by far the most common industrial robots. Often they have an
anthropomorphic mechanical arm structure, i.e. a serial chain of rigid links, connected
by (mostly revolute) joints, forming a "shoulder", an "elbow", and a "wrist".
Their main advantage is their large workspace with respect to their own volume and
occupied floor space.

Their main disadvantages are

 the low stiffness inherent to an open kinematic structure

 errors are accumulated and amplified from link to link
 the fact that they have to carry and move the large weight of most of the
actuators
 the relatively low effective load that they can manipulate

From rigid body motion it is known that it requires at least six degrees of freedom to
place a manipulated object in an arbitrary position and orientation in the workspace of
the robot. Hence, many serial robots have six joints. However the most popular
application for serial robots in today's industry is pick-and-place assembly. Since this
only requires four degrees of freedom, special assembly robots of the so called SCARA
type are built.

An example of a serial manipulator with 7 DOF in a kinematic chain

Structure
In its most general form, a serial robot consists of a number of rigid links connected
with joints. Simplicity considerations in manufacturing and control have led to robots
with only revolute or prismatic joints and orthogonal, parallel and/or intersecting joint
axes (instead of arbitrarily placed joint axes).
Donald L. Pieper derived the first practically relevant result in this context [1], referred to
as 321 kinematic structure: The inverse kinematics of serial manipulators with six
revolute joints, and with three consecutive joints intersecting, can be solved in closed-
form, i.e. analytically This result had a tremendous influence on the design of industrial
robots.

Types

1. Stationary robots (including robotic arms with a global axis of movement)

1.1 Cartesian/Gantry robots

1.2 Cylindrical robots

1.3 Spherical robots

1.4 SCARA robots

1.5 Articulated robots (robotic arms)

1.6 Parallel robots

Kinematics
The position and orientation of a robot's end effector are derived from the joint positions
by means of a geometric model of the robot arm. For serial robots, the mapping from
joint positions to end-effector pose is easy; the inverse mapping is more difficult.
Therefore, most industrial robots have special designs that reduce the complexity of the
inverse mapping.

Robot kinematics is the study of the motion (kinematics) of robots. In a kinematic

analysis the position, velocity and acceleration of all the links are calculated without
considering the forces that cause this motion. The relationship between motion, and the
associated forces and torques is studied in robot dynamics. One of the most active areas
within robot kinematics is the screw theory.

Robot kinematics deals with aspects of redundancy, collision avoidance and

singularity avoidance. While dealing with the kinematics used in the robots we deal
each parts of the robot by assigning a frame of reference to it and hence a robot with
many parts may have many individual frames assigned to each movable parts. For
simplicity we deal with the single manipulator arm of the robot. Each frames are named
systematically with numbers, for example the immovable base part of the manipulator is
numbered 0, and the first link joined to the base is numbered 1, and the next link 2 and
similarly till n for the last nth link.

Robot kinematics are mainly of the following two types: forward kinematics and
inverse kinematics. Forward kinematics is also known as direct kinematics. In forward
kinematics, the length of each link and the angle of each joint is given and we have to
calculate the position of any point in the work volume of the robot. In inverse
kinematics, the length of each link and position of the point in work volume is given
and we have to calculate the angle of each joint.

Robot kinematics can be divided in serial manipulator kinematics, parallel manipulator

kinematics, mobile robot kinematics and humanoid kinematics.

Often robot kinematics are described in reference to a simplified kinematic diagram that
applies to a large category of physical robots.

 Forward Position Kinematics

The forward position kinematics problem can be stated as follows: given the different
joint angles, what is the the position of the end-effector? With the previous sections in
mind, the answer is rather simple: construct the different transformation matrices and
combine them in the right way, the result being , where {bs} is the base frame of
the robot manipulator.

Solution
Suppose the mutual orientation matrices between adjacent links are known. (As the
fixed parameters of each link are known, and the joint angles are a given to the problem,
these can be calculated. One possible way to do this would be to make use of the
Denavit-Hartenberg convention.) The transformation that relates the last and first
frames in a serial manipulator arm, and thus, the solution to the forward kinematics
problem, is then represented by the compound homogeneous transformation matrix. The
axes are moving, thus, the compound homogeneous transformation matrix is found by
premultiplying the individual transformation matrices:
Examples: The Planar Three-Link Manipulator
The equations below use 3 × 3 pose matrices, as this is just a 2-dimensional case (cf. the
figure on the right).

A planar three link manipulator. Each Xi-axis lies along the ith link. Each Yi-axis lies perpendicular to
the corresponding Xi-axis in such a way that a positive θi corresponds with a rotation from Xi to Yi.

The pose of the first link, relative to the reference frame, is given by (recall the
elementary rotation about the z-axis from the previous section):

The pose of the second link, relative to the first link, is given by:

This corresponds to a rotation by an angle θ2 and a translation by a distance l1, where l1

is the length of the first link.

The pose of the third link, relative to the second link, is given by:

The pose of the end effector, relative to the third link, is given by:

The solution to the forward kinematics problem is then:

Hence:

The resulting kinematic equations are:

 Inverse Position Kinematics

The inverse kinematics problem is the opposite of the forward kinematics problem and
can be summarized as follows: given the desired position of the end effector, what
combinations of the joint angles can be used to achieve this position?

An example of two different solutions for the inverse kinematics problem leading to the same end-effector position
and orientation.

Two types of solutions can be considered: a closed-form solution and a numerical

solution. Closed-form or analytical solutions are sets of equations that fully describe the
connection between the end-effector position and the joint angles. Numerical solutions
are found through the use of numerical algorithms, and can exist even when no closed-
form solution is available. There may also be multiple solutions or no solution at all.

Example: Planar Three-Link Manipulator

The inverse kinematics problem for this 2D manipulator can quite easily be solved
algebraically.

From the earlier results (for simplicity, the displacement over the distance l3 shall be
omitted here):
Now assume a given end-effector orientation in the following form:

Equating the two previous expressions results in:

As:

squaring both the expressions for x and y and adding them, leads to:

Solving for c2 leads to:

while s2 equals:

and, finally, θ2:

θ2 = Atan2(s2,c2)

Note: The choice of the sign for s2 corresponds with one of the two solutions in the
figure above.

The expressions for x and y may now be solved for θ1. In order to do so, write them like
this:

where k1 = l1 + l2c2, and k2 = l2s2.

Let:

Then:

Applying these to the above equations for x and y:

or:

Thus:

γ + θ1 = Atan2(y,x)

Hence:

θ1 = Atan2(y,x) − Atan2(k2,k1)

Note: If x = y = 0, θ1 actually becomes arbitrary.

θ3 may now be solved from the first two equations for sφ and cφ:

θ3 = φ − θ1 − θ2 = Atan2(sφ,cφ) − θ1 − θ2

Workspace
The reachable workspace of a robot's end-effector is the manifold of reachable frames.
The dextrous workspace consists of the points of the reachable workspace where the
robot can generate velocities that span the complete tangent space at that point, i.e., it
can translate the manipulated object with three degrees of freedom, and rotate the object
with three degrees of rotation freedom.
The relationships between joint space and Cartesian space coordinates of the object held
by the robot are in general multiple-valued: the same pose can be reached by the serial
arm in different ways, each with a different set of joint coordinates. Hence the reachable
workspace of the robot is divided in configurations (also called assembly modes), in
which the kinematic relationships are locally one-to-one.

Singularities
At a singularity the end-effector loses one or more degrees of twist freedom
(instantaneously, the end-effector cannot move in these directions).
Serial robots with less than six independent joints are always singular in the sense that
they can never span a six-dimensional twist space. This is often called an architectural
singularity. A singularity is usually not an isolated point in the workspace of the robot,
but a sub-manifold.

Redundancies
A manipulator with 7 joints is called redundant if it exceeds this number up to n joints,
it is called hyper-redundant. An example of such a robot is Robotics Design's ANAT
AMI-100, an arm with a combined SCARA-articulated configuration.

An example of a serial manipulator with 8 DOF that can be configured to n degrees of freedom in mono
and dual arm configurations

Raw materials
Robots are mostly built of common materials. Some specialized robots for clean room
applications, the space program, or other "high tech" projects may use titanium metal
and structural composites of carbon fibers. The operating environment and strength
required are major factors in material selection.

Steel, cast iron, and aluminum are most often used for the arms and bases of robots. If
the robot is mobile, they usually equip them with rubber tires for quiet operation and a
positive grip on the floor. Robots contain a significant amount of electronics and wiring,
and some are radio or laser controlled. The cylinders and other motion-generating
mechanisms contain hydraulic oil or pressurized air. Hoses of silicone, rubber, and
braided stainless steel connect these mechanisms to their control valves. To protect the
robot from the environment, some exposed areas are covered with flexible neoprene
shields and collapsible bellows. Electric motors and linear drives are purchased from
automation suppliers along with the controller, or "brain." Controllers are housed in
steel electrical cabinets located near the robot's work area or carried on board the robot
itself.

Applications
Most are used for repetitive painting and welding operations, while others, known as
pick-and-place robots, are used to lift and place products into machines and packages.
 The manufacturing process
Design
Every robot begins with the design phase. These and other factors must be accounted
for in the design: job to be performed; speed of operation; environment of operation;
hazardous materials involved; length of reach; path of travel; process variables; human
involvement; controller capability; and result of failures.
Most manufacturers have a basic machine design to which they incorporate
modifications and accessories to meet the specific requirements of the application.
Robots, like any tool, are only as good as the people wielding them. They cannot do
jobs they were not designed or programmed to do. They are most effective when the
overall system and processes are carefully planned. In addition, workers responsible for
them have to be fully educated and trained as well.

The first robot installed in American industry, this Unimate "pick-and-place" uni) first removed hot metal parts from
a die-casting machine at a GM plant in Trenton, New Jersey, in 1961.
(From the collections of Henry Ford Museum & Greenfield Village.)

Fabrication
Once designed, the base, arms, column, and supports are fabricated. The base is usually
heavy, to prevent the robot from tipping over. It is made by casting or by welding, then
machined. Many robot manufacturers use robots to weld parts for new ones.
Those areas that mate with the rest of the robot are machined with close dimensional
control to assure proper fit and operation of the attaching components. Likewise, the
main column and arms are constructed to fit accurately into the final assembly.

Assembly
Robots are assembled using a substantial amount of purchased components such as
electric motors, hydraulic cylinders, bearings, wiring, controllers, and other important
parts.
To begin the assembly process, mobile robots first have the traction motors, batteries,
axles, wheels, and tires mounted. Stationary robots do not require these items. They are
temporarily bolted to the floor for stability during assembly. The moving columns and
arms are subassembled with their respective drive motors and then attached to the base.
The base contains a ring gear that is motor driven to provide the turning motion. It must
mate closely with the drive gear contained in the column. Thrust bearings support the
weight of column and arms on the base. A magnetic scale surrounds the bearing and
provides electronic position feedback to the controller.

Link
The next joint is the link. It acts like an elbow, and connects the arm to the base. A
stabilizer support provides positional control to the link, allowing it to move in a
predetermined path. These components contain bearing mounts into which pivot shafts
are bolted. Each bearing is prelubricated or provided with a lubrication line or fitting.
The link contains a position sensor which provides another position signal to the
controller.

Arm
The arm is assembled onto the upright portion of the link. It provides the most "reach"
to the robot and supports the wrist. The arm contains the drive shafts that operate the
wrist. Three motors, or a combination of motors and hydraulic cylinders, are connected
to the drive shafts. Since the arm and link joint must withstand the entire load of the
wrist, this is accomplished with large bearings and a pivot pin.

Wrist
The wrist is the critical mechanism of the robot. It is the wrist that most replicates
human motion by twisting and turning to place the paint gun, welder, or other tool in the
correct position. Many robots also have load-sensing electronics in the wrist to signal
when an obstruction has been hit, or when a load is too heavy to safely pick up.
Additional position sensors and tool control electronics are also assembled into the arm
and wrist.
Wiring to the controller
Once the mechanical assembly has been completed, the wiring and plumbing of the
robot can be finished. All of the motor's sensors and electrical components must have
wires for power and to carry information back to the control computer. Occasionally,
unused space in the arms and base provides a handy place to mount some of the
controller electronics, shortening the wiring paths. Hydraulic and air cylinders have
hoses that carry pressure to operate them, controlled from the valves in the base. Most
of these wires and hoses are routed back to the controller cabinet which, for mobile
robots, is attached to the base. If the robot is stationary, this controller is usually
mounted several feet away and is connected by an umbilical cord. After assembly, the
arms and column of the robot are sometimes covered with guards and shields to protect
them from paint spray, welding sparks, or other hazards in the environment.

Installation
Installation occurs at the user's site. If / stationary, the robot is secured to the floor with
bolts. Stationary applications usually require that fences be constructed around the robot
so an unsuspecting human doesn't wander into the robot's work area and be injured.
After installation, the robot manufacturer usually provides operation and maintenance
training to the customer.

Future
Robotics is one of the fastest growing segments of the industrial machine market.
Driven mainly by advances in computer technology, older robots are quickly made
obsolete by new models. Japanese firms are leading the development of robotics, and
many of their designs incorporate the new science of artificial intelligence which allows
robots to "learn" and "adapt" their operations on their own.

Advances in cameras and electronic vision will also impact the robot in the 1990s.
Many robots will enter new areas of use such as medical and food service, which will
bring more people into contact with them than previously occurred in the industrial
workplace.
Robot topology
The kinematic skeleton of a robot is modeled as a series of links connected by either
hinged or sliding joints forming a serial chain. This skeleton has two basic forms, that of
a single serial chain called a serial robot and as a set of serial chains supporting a single
end-effector, called a parallel robot.

The PUMA 560 robot

The robot end-effector is the preferred tool for interaction with the environment, and the
ability to position and orient this end-effector is defined by the skeleton of the robot. In
a general serial robot, a chain of six joints provides full control over the end-effector . In
a general parallel robot, there are more than six joints and the six actuators may be
applied to these joints in a variety of ways to control the movement of the end-effector.

A serial chain robot is a sequence of links and joints that begins at a base and ends with
an end-effector.

A single finger of the Salisbury hand is a serial chain robot

The links and joints of a robot are often configured to provide separate translation and
orientation structures. Usually, the first 3 joints are used to position a reference point in
space and the last 3 form the wrist which orients the end-effector around this point.

RobotWorld is an integrated workcell with multiple

robot modules that move on air bearings
 The Sony Robot uses open-loop permanent-magnet
stepper motor

This reference point is called the wrist center. The volume of space in which the wrist
center can be placed is called the reachable workspace of the robot. The rotations
available at each of these points is called the dexterous workspace.
The design of a robot is often based on the symmetry of its reachable workspace. From
this point of view there are 3 basic shapes: rectangular, cylindrical, and spherical.

The Salisbury hand as the end-effector

of a PUMA robot (the drive system is
not shown) A photograph of the Salisbury
three-fingered hand grasping a block The Salisbury three fingered
robot hand with its cable
drive system

 A rectangular workspace is provided by 3 mutually perpendicular prismatic (P)

joints which form a PPPS chain called a Cartesian robot- S denotes a spherical
wrist which allows all rotations about its center point.
 A rotary base joint combined with 2 prismatic joints forms a CPS chain with a
cylindrical workspace- C denotes a rotary (R) and sliding (P) joint with the same
axis. The P-joint can be replaced by a revolute (R) joint that acts as an elbow in
order to provide the same radial movement.
 Finally, 2 rotary joints at right angles form a T-joint at the base of the robot that
supports rotations about a vertical and horizontal axes. Radial movement is
provided either by a P-joint, or by an R-joint configured as an elbow. The result
is a TPS or TRS chain with an spherical workspace.
It is rare that the workspace is completely symmetrical because joint axes are often
offset to avoid link collisions and there are limits to joint travel which combine to
distort the shape of the workspace.