Robotics Manipulation - Basics
Manipulation is the movement that the robot has to do in order to accomplish a certain goal, affecting and changing with this movement the environment. A basic example of this is what a robotic arm has to do in order to move an object from one place to another.
The endeffector is the part of the manipulator that affects the world. The movement of this part is quite complex, as it has to also take in consideration the arm and the body where it’s attached.
Kinematics and inverse kinematics
Kinematics is the correspondence between actuator motion and the resulting effector motion in the world. In order to make this calculation, you need to establish rules to define where is the effector in relation to the arm and how are the joints related to each other. These joints are usually rotatory, so we use the angles for the mathematics.
Inverse kinematics is the inverse problem. Given a point, what are the angles that we have to achieve in order to make the endeffector move to that point. Inverse kinematics are used commonly in the robotics field, although it has the problem of being quite expensive to calculate.
Kinematics – Given the joints angles, where is the end effector Inverse kinematics – Given a point in the space, which angles we need to get there
Other problems and subfields
Manipulation of objects is so broad that many other problems and subfields have emerged. For example, dynamics is the properties of motion and energy of a given object, a problem that is even more complex and computationally expensive. Other examples of subfields are: grasp points of the endeffector in an object, grasp strength of the endeffector…
Notes References
20210514183815 INDEX - Robotics
20210514185045 Robotic Effectors and Actuators - Basics