22/06/2020

Robotics and automation

Dr. Ibrahim Al-Naimi

Chapter three
Spatial Description and
Transformation

1
 22/06/2020

Notations

Basic Principles and Terminologies

• Orthogonal and Orthonormal vectors.
• Dot product and projection.
• Cross product.
• Free vector.
• Matrix operations are associative but not commutative.
• Identity matrix.
• Transpose and inverse of a matrix.
• Orthogonal and Orthonormal matrix.
• Trace of a matrix.
• The determinant of a matrix.
• Singular matrix.
• Trigonometric functions.

2
 22/06/2020

Spatial Description and Transformation

• Problem: Robotic manipulation,
by definition, implies that parts
and tools will be moving around
in space by the manipulator
mechanism. This naturally leads
to the need of representing
positions and orientations of the
parts, tools, and the mechanism it
self.
• Solution: Mathematical tools for
representing position and
orientation of objects / frames in
a 3Dspace.

Description of a Position
• The location of any point can be described as a 3x1
position vector in a reference coordinate system.

3
 22/06/2020

Description of a Position

Description of an Orientation
• The orientation of a body is described by attaching a coordinate
system to the body {B} and then defining the relationship
between the body frame and the reference frame {A} using the
rotation matrix.

4
 22/06/2020

Description of an Orientation
• In summary, a set of three vectors may be used to
specify an orientation. For convenience, we will
construct a 3 x 3 matrix that has these three vectors
as its columns. Hence, whereas the position of a
point is represented with a vector, the orientation of
a body is represented with a matrix.
• The rotation matrix is built by projecting the axes of
the coordinate system {B} onto the axes of
coordinate system {A}. Recalling that the dot
product of two unit vectors gives the projection of
one onto the other, we obtain:

Description of an Orientation

• The dot product of two unit vectors yields the

cosine of the angle between them, so it is clear why
the components of rotation matrices are often
referred to as direction cosines.
• The columns of specify the direction cosines of
the {B} coordinate axes relative to the {A} coordinate
axes.

5
 22/06/2020

Description of an Orientation

Description of an Orientation
• Further inspection on the rotation matrix shows
that the rows of the matrix are the unit vectors of
{A} expressed in {B}; that is,

Note: The dot product is commutative operation.

6
 22/06/2020

Description of an Orientation
• Additionally, it can be noticed that,

• Hence,

Description of an Orientation
Rotation Matrix Properties
1. All the columns of a rotation matrix are
orthogonal to each other.
2. The determinant of a rotation matrix is 1.
3. The inverse of a rotation matrix is equal to its
transpose.

7
 22/06/2020

Description of an Orientation
Rotation about Z axis

Description of an Orientation
Rotation about Y axis

8
 22/06/2020

Description of an Orientation
Rotation about X axis

Description of a Frame
• The information needed to completely specify where is
the manipulator hand is a position and an orientation.
• The point on the body whose position we describe could
be chosen arbitrarily. However, for convenience, the point
whose position we will describe is chosen as the origin of
the body-attached frame.
• The situation of a position and an orientation pair arises
so often in robotics that we define an entity called a
frame, which is a set of four vectors giving position and
orientation information.
• Note that a frame is a coordinate system where, in
addition to the orientation, we give a position vector
which locates its origin relative to some other embedding
frame.

9
 22/06/2020

Description of a Frame

Mappings: Changing Description from

Frame to Frame
• In robotics, it is required to express the same
quantity in terms of various reference coordinate
systems.
• The previous section introduced descriptions of
positions, orientations, and frames. Now, the
mathematics of mapping is considered in order to
change descriptions from frame to frame.

10
 22/06/2020

Mapping: Translated Frames

• In the following Figure, we have a position defined
by the vector BP. We wish to express this point in
space in terms of frame {A}, when {A} has the
same orientation as {B}. In this case, {B} differs
from {A} only by a translation, which is given by
AP
BORG, a vector that locates the origin of {B}
relative to {A}.
• Because both vectors are defined relative to
frames of the same orientation, we calculate the
description of point P relative to {A}, AP, by vector
addition.

Mapping: Translated Frames

11
 22/06/2020

Mapping: Translated Frames

• The quantity itself (here, a point in space) is not
changed; only its description is changed. i.e. The
point described by BP is not translated, but
remains the same, and instead we have computed
a new description of the same point, but now with
respect to system {A}.
• The vector APBORG defines this mapping because all
the information needed to perform the change in
description is contained in in this vector.
• Note: in this case = I.

Mapping: Translated Frames

• Example:

12
 22/06/2020

Mapping: Rotated Frames

• Assuming that frame {B} is only rotated (not
translated) with respect to frame {A} (the origins
of the two frames are located at the same point)
the position of the point in frame {B} can be
expressed in frame {A} using the rotation matrix.
• The components of any vector are simply the
projections of that vector onto the unit directions
of its frame. The projection is calculated as the
vector dot product. Thus, we see that the
components of AP may be calculated as:

Mapping: Rotated Frames

13
 22/06/2020

Mapping: Rotated Frames

• The equation implements a mapping (i.e. it
changes the description of a vector) from BP which
describes a point in space relative to {B}, into AP,
which is a description of the same point, but
expressed relative to {A}.
• Note: in this case APBROG = 0.
• A helpful way of viewing the notation we have
introduced is to imagine that leading subscripts
cancel the leading superscripts of the following
entity, for example the Bs in the previous
equation.

Mapping: Rotated Frames (example)

14
 22/06/2020

Mapping: Rotated Frames (example)

Mapping: Rotated Frames (example)

15
 22/06/2020

Mapping: General Frames

• Assuming that frame {B} is both translated and
rotated with respect to frame {A}. The description
of a vector with respect to frame {B} is known (BP),
and it is required to describe the vector with
respect to frame {A} (AP).
• It is the general case of mapping.
• The origin of frame {B} is not coincident with that
of frame {A} but has a general vector offset.

Mapping: General Frames

• We can first change BP to its description relative to
an intermediate frame that has the same
orientation as {A}, but whose origin is coincident
with the origin of {B}. This is done by
premultiplying by
• We then account for the translation between
origins by simple vector addition, as before, and
obtain:

16
 22/06/2020

Mapping: General Frames

Mapping: General Frames

17
 22/06/2020

Mapping: General Frames

• It is required to think of a mapping from one
frame to another as an operator in matrix form.
This aids in writing compact equations and is
conceptually clearer than the previous equation.

Mapping: General Frames

• The 4 x 4 matrix in the previous equation is called

a homogeneous transform.
• The homogeneous transform is a 4x4 matrix
casting the rotation and translation of a general
transform into a single matrix.
• The description of frame {B} relative to {A} is

18
 22/06/2020

Mapping: General Frames

Mapping: General Frames (Example)

19
 22/06/2020

Mapping: General Frames (Example)

Mapping: General Frames (Example)

20
 22/06/2020

Operators: Translation, Rotation, and

Transformation

Operators: Translation, Rotation, and

Transformation (Example)

21
 22/06/2020

Homogeneous Transform - Summary

of Interpretation
• As a general tool to represent frames, we have introduced
the homogeneous transform, a 4 x 4 matrix containing
orientation and position information. We have introduced
three interpretations of this homogeneous transform:

Transformation Arithmetic

• In this section, we look at the multiplication of

transforms and the inversion of transforms. These
two elementary operations form a functionally
complete set of transform operators.
– Compound transformation.
– Inverted transformation.

22
 22/06/2020

Transformation Arithmetic: Compound

Transformation

Transformation Arithmetic: Inverted

Transformation

23
 22/06/2020

Transformation Arithmetic (Example)

Transformation Arithmetic (Example)

24
 22/06/2020

Transform Equation
• The following Figure indicates a situation in which a frame {D}
can be expressed relative to frame {U} as products of
transformations in two different ways:

Transform Equation
• We can set these two descriptions of equal to
construct transform equation:

• Transform equations can be used to solve for transforms

in the case of n unknown transforms and n transform
equations.
• For example, in the previous situation, if all the
transformations are known except . Here, we have one
transform equation and one unknown transform; hence,
we easily find its solution to be:

25
 22/06/2020

Transform Equation
• A graphical representation of frames as an arrow pointing
from one origin to another origin is usually used. The
arrow's direction indicates which way the frames are
defined.
• In order to compound frames when the arrows line up, we
simply compute the product of the transforms. If an arrow
points the opposite way in a chain of transforms, we simply
compute its inverse first.
• For example, in the following Figure, there are two possible
descriptions of frame {C}:

Transform Equation
• To find

26
 22/06/2020

Transform Equation (Example)

Different Methods in Representing Orientation

27
 22/06/2020

Different Methods in Representing Orientation

• The nine elements of a rotation matrix are

dependent.
• The orientation can be represented using only
three independent variables.
• A human operator at a computer terminal who
wishes to type in the specification of the desired
orientation of a robot's hand would have a hard
time inputting a nine-element matrix with
orthonormal columns. A representation that
requires only three numbers would be simpler.

Different Methods in Representing Orientation

• X-Y-Z Fixed Angles (Roll, Pitch, Yaw angles):
The rotations perform about an axis of a fixed reference
frame
• Z-Y-X Euler Angles
The rotations perform about an axis of a moving reference
frame.
• Note: The final orientation of three successive rotations
made about moving axes is the same as the final
orientation of the three same rotations taken in the
opposite order about fixed axes.

28
 22/06/2020

X-Y-Z Fixed Angles (Roll, Pitch, Yaw angles)

• One method of describing the orientation of a frame (B} is
as follows:

29
 22/06/2020

X-Y-Z Fixed Angles (Roll, Pitch, Yaw angles)

X-Y-Z Fixed Angles (Roll, Pitch, Yaw angles)

30
 22/06/2020

X-Y-Z Fixed Angles (Roll, Pitch, Yaw angles)

Z-Y-X Euler Angles

31
 22/06/2020

Z-Y-X Euler Angles

X-Y-Z Fixed Angles Versus Z-Y-X Euler Angles

32
 22/06/2020

Transformation of Free Vectors

• A free vector refers to a vector that may be positioned
anywhere in space without loss or change of meaning,
provided that magnitude and direction are preserved.
• Velocity, moment, force and acceleration are free vectors.
• In other words, all that counts is the magnitude and
direction (in the case of a free vector), so only the
rotation matrix relating the two systems is used in
transforming. The relative locations of the origins do not
enter into the calculation.

Transformation of Free Vectors

33