Industrial robots By Vinayak Nandikal

The International Organization for Standardization gives a

definition of robot in ISO 8373: "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." This
definition is used by the International Federation of Robotics
, the European Robotics Research Network (EURON), and
many national standards committees.

"A robot is a reprogrammable, multi-functional manipulator

designed to move material, parts, tools, or specialized devices
through variable programmed motions for the performance of a
variety of tasks." (Robotics Institute of America)
• Fanuc Robotics (Japan)
• Kuka (Germany)
• ABB (1988 through merger of ASEA of Sweden
and Brown, Boveri & Cie of Switzerland)
• Stäubli (Switzerland)
• Adept  (USA)
• Yskawa Motorman (Japan)
Robots are used in almost any industry where
repetitive tasks are involved, or the task is
difficult manually, or dangerous, such as
 welding, painting, or surface finishing in the aerospace
or automotive industries
 electronics and consumer products assembly and
inspection inspection of parts by robot assisted sensors
or in the form of a Coordinate Measurement Machine
(CMM)
 underwater and space exploration hazardous
waste remediation in government labs, nuclear
facilities, and medical labs
 Cartesian or gantry robot: Cartesian robots have
three linear joints that use the Cartesian coordinate system (X, Y, and Z).
They also may have an attached wrist to allow for rotational movement.
The three prismatic joints deliver a linear motion along the axis.
 Cylindrical robot : The robot has at least one rotary joint
at the base and at least one prismatic joint to connect the links. The rotary
joint uses a rotational motion along the joint axis, while the prismatic joint
moves in a linear motion. Cylindrical robots operate within a cylindrical-
shaped work envelope.
 Spherical Robot
 Scara : Commonly used in assembly application, this selectively
compliant arm assembly is primarily cylindrical in design. It features two
parallel joints that provide compliance in one selected plane.
 Articulate: All joints are revolute. Most industrial robots are of
this type.
 Parallel Link: example Stewart’s platform, spider from Adept
Cartesian (PPP)
Cylindrical (RPP)

Spherical
(RRP) Spherical (RRP)
 Robot consists of rigid links connected to
one another by joints which allow relative
motion of neighboring links
 Links
 Joints
 Prismatic: Sliding joint
 Revolute: rotation
 End effector:
A the free end of the link chain
(normaly wrist) is the end-effector.
 Gripper
 Welding torch
 Electro magnet
 Or any other tool
 Payload is the maximum load the that
robot can carry with out compromising its
speed and accuracy.
 Always specified at some distance from
wrist.
 Auxiliary payload:
 The load which can be put on other arms
 Normally much higher then actual payload
 Number of independent variables
used to define the configuration of
the robot
 Number of motors used gives the dof of
robot
 In 3-D space the robot must have 6 dof
to position and orient the tool
▪ 3-dof for positioning
▪ Another 3-dof for orientation of the tool
 Two types of work volume
 Dextrous : is that volume of space
which the robot end-effector can reach
with all orientation
 Reachable work volume: that volume of
space which the robot can reach with at
least one orientation
A taught point is one that the
robot is moved to physically, and
then the joint position
recorded/stored
 Points are taught using teach
pendent
 Repeatability is the precision by
which the robot can be positioned at
its taught point
 The precision with which the computed points
can be attained is called accuracy.
 Computed point are points which the robot
has to reach but were never taught to it. For
example point coming from camera or directly
programmed
 Accuracy is lower bounded by repeatability
 Accuracy is affected by the precision of parameters
appearing in the kinematic equations. E.x. Error in
DH parameters
 Real time
 i/o cards (analog and digital) can be attached to
robot controller
 i/o signals are read in real time and action taken
 There is a upper limit to the maximum number of
i/o the robot can access
 Non-real time
 Cannot be used to generate interrupts
 Cannot be used modify the motion all ready started
 OPC, serial communication etc, (manufacturer
dependent)
 Theorientation of an object can be
defined by attaching a coordinate
system to the object and then
describing it with respect to some
reference coordinate system
 Tool coordinate system
 attached to the tool or end effector
 Wrist coordinate system
 Attached to the wrist of the robot. Fixed during
manufacturing. Tool C.S is defined w.r.t this
 Base coordinate system
 Attached to the work piece or table etc
 Global / world coordinate system
 A fixed coordinate system w.r.t the robot. All other
coordinate system gets calibrated with respect to this.
 Actuator coordinate system
 Translation: when origin one coordinate
system (C.S.) is displaced w.r.t a ref.
C.S. The axis remain parallel
 Rotation: When one C.S. is rotated
about any axis in some ref. C.S. This is
described by a 3x3 rotation matrix.
 Transformation = rotation and
translation
 Tocompletely describe a tool with
respect to some C.S we need to know
both the
 Position of the origin of tool C.S
 And Orientation of the tool C.S
 Frame includes both position and
orientation of an object
 Mapping between frames is carried out
using Homogeneous transformation. It
is a 4X4 matrix
 Roll pitch yaw
Start with the frame {B} coincident with a known referance frame
{A}.First rotate {b} about X̂ A by an angle γ , then about ŶA
by an angle β . and then rotate about Ẑ A by an angle α
  Z-Y-X Eural angle
Start with frame {B} consident with known frame {A}.
First rotate {B} about Ẑ B by an angle α , then rotate
about ŶB by an angle β , and the rotate about X̂ B by angle γ
 Z-Y-Z Eular angle

Start with frame {B} consident with known frame {A}.

First rotate {B} about Ẑ B by an angle α , then rotate
about ŶB by an angle β , and the rotate about Ẑ B by angle γ
 Equivalent angle axis
Start with frame {B} consident with known frame {A}.
First rotate {B} about a vector A K̂ by an angle θ , according to the right hand
rule
 Forward kinematics
 Given the joint find the configuration (orientation
+ position) of the Tool Coordinate Point (TCP) w.r.t
world or base frame
 Solution easy
 Use in coordinate measuring machine
 Inverse kinematics
 Given the configuration of TCP find the joint angle
 A system is solvable if some algorithm exist
to find all joint angles, given the end-effector
position and orientation
 Equation are nonlinear- difficult to solve
 Multiple solutions may exist
 Method of solution
 Closed form solution
▪ Pieper showed that robots having 6dof and 3
consecutive intersect at a point can have closed form
solution
 Numerical solution
 For kinematic point a link
is described by two
attribute
 Link length “ai-1 ”
▪ Directed from axis “i-1”
to “i”
 Link twist “α i−1 “
▪ As per rigahd rule thumb
along “ai-1 ”
 Each link is numbered
starting from zero for the
ground link or Base link
 When is “ai-1” not defined uniquely ?
 Axis intersects
 Axis are parallel
 When is “α i−1 “ not defined uniquely?

 Choose what ever suits you.

 When one link is
described w.r.t another
link two more parameters
come into picture
 Link offset “di”
 Joint angle “θ i”
 Either of to is variable
 Prismatic d is variable
 Revolute θ is variable
 These four parameter ai-
1, α i−1 , di, θ i is called
Denavit-Hartenberg
parameter
 “d” and “θ ”
 What is the direction of “d” and θ
 Pointing from axis “i-1” to “I”
 For θ use right hand rule

Now will fix coordinate system to each link

 Axis specific motion
 PTP the fastest motion
 Path related motions
 Linear
 Circular
 Spline
Multiple solution is a problem
for PTP motion only
 How multiple solution is help full ?
 Obstacle avoidance
 Occurs only in case of PTP motion
 Orientation control:
 The orientation of a tool can be different at the start
point and end point of a motion. There are several
different types of transition from the start orientation
to the end orientation.
 Types of control
 Slandered
 Wrist PTP
 constant
 The orientation of the tool changes continuously during
the motion. The orientation is achieved by rotating and
pivoting about the TCP.
 The CP motion is broken down into several small PTP
motions by the robot controller.
 This excludes the possibility of a singularity occurring in
the case of Wrist PTP. The robot can deviate slightly
from its path, however.
 Wrist PTP not suitable if the robot must follow its path
exactly, e.g. in the case of laser welding.
 The orientation of tool remains constant
 Start position orientation is fixed
 End position orientation is disregarded
 Needs 3 points
 Draws only half circle (specific to KUKA)
 Singularity comes from matrix inversion
 one to one correspondence between joint
C.S and Cartesian C.S. is lot
 Singularity is a configuration of the robot
 One or more degree of freedom is lost
 Small change in Cartesian coordinate
results in large change joint motion.
 For articulate 6 dof robot 3 types of
singularity exists ( for example KukaR6)
 Overhead: the wrist root point (intersection of axes A4, A5
andA6) is located vertically above axis 1.
 Extended: the wrist root point (intersection of axes A4, A5
and A6) is located in the extension of axes A2 and A3 of the
robot. The robot is at its limit of work volume
 Wrist :In the wrist axis singularity position, the axes
A4 and A6 are parallel to one another and axis A5 is within the
range ±0.01812°
 It is a multidimensional form of derivative
 Relates joint velocity with Cartesian co-ordinate.
 It is square matrix called J
 J is a function of joint angles
 When the Jacobian becomes singular i.e. det(J) = 0,
under certain configuration the, the robot is said to
be in singular position
 SCARA Robot Kinematics
 A 4-axis SCARA (Selective Compliance Assembly Robot Arm) robot has
parallel shoulder, elbow, and wrist rotary joints, and a linear vertical axis
through the center of rotation of the wrist. This type of manipulator is
very common in light-duty applications such as electronic assembly.
 Mechanism Description
 In this example, the upper-arm length (L ) is 400 mm, and the
1

lower-arm length (L ) is 300 mm. The shoulder joint (S), the

2

elbow joint (E), and the wrist joint (W) have resolutions of
1000 counts per degree. Rotation in the positive direction for
all 3 joints is counter-clockwise when viewed from the top.
The vertical axis (V) has a resolution of 100 counts per
millimeter, and movement in the positive direction goes up.
When the shoulder, elbow, and wrist joints are at their zero-
degree positions, the two links are both extended along the X-
axis and the tool orientation C is at zero degrees. When the
vertical axis is at its home position, it is 250 mm above the Z-
axis zero point. Due to wiring constraints, rollover of the
rotary axes is not permitted.

 Forward Kinematics
 Inverse Kinematics
 Limiting ourselves to positive values of the elbow (E) angle, producing the right-armed case (done by selecting the
positive arc-cosine solutions), we can write our inverse kinematic equations as follows:
 Velocity of tool point w.r.t joint speed
x = −{L1 sin( S ) + L2 sin( S + E )}S − L2 sin( S + E ) E
y = {L cos( S ) + L cos( S + E )}S + L cos( S + E ) E
1 2 2

C = S + E + W
z = V
Or in matrix form
 x  − L1 sin( S ) − L2 sin( S + E ) − L2 sin( S + E ) 0 0  S 
 y   L cos( S ) + L cos( S + E ) L cos( S + E )  
 = 1 2 2 0 0  E  ⇒ J = L1 L2 Sin( E )
*
 c   1 1 1 0 W 
     
 z   0 0 0 1  V  Singulatity when J = 0
− L1 sin( S ) − L2 sin( S + E ) − L2 sin( S + E ) 0 0
 L cos( S ) + L cos( S + E ) L cos( S + E ) 0 0 ⇒E=0
J = 1 2 2

 1 1 1 0
 
 0 0 0 1
 Ifanyone knows more info, you can
contact

Vinayak Hegde Nandikal

Email: vinayak.nandi@gmail.com