256 Chapter 8 Manipulator-mechanism design

[22] V. Scheinman, "Design of a Computer Controlled Manipulator," M.S. Thesis,

Mechanical Engineering Department, Stanford University, 1969.
[23] K. Lau, N. Dagalakis, and D. Meyers, "Testing," in The International Encyclopedia of
Robotics, R. Don and S. Nof, Editors, John Wiley and Sons, New York, 1988.
[24] M. Roshiem, "Wrists," in The International Encyclopedia of Robotics, R. Dorf and
S. Nof, Editors, John Wiley and Sons, New York, 1988.
[251 A. Bowling and 0. Khatib, "Robot Acceleration Capability: The Actuation Effi-
ciency Measure," Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and
Automation, San Francisco, April 2000.

EXERCISES
8.1 [15] A robot is to be used for positioning a laser cutting device. The laser produces
a pinpoint, nondivergent beam. For general cutting tasks, how many degrees of
freedom does the positioning robot need? Justify your answer.
8.2 [15] Sketch a possible joint configuration for the laser-positioning robot of
Exercise 8.1, assuming that it will be used primarily for cutting at odd angles
through 1-inch-thick, 8 x 8-foot plates.
8.3 [17] For a spherical robot like that of Fig. 8.6, if joints 1 and 2 have no limits and
joint 3 has lower limit 1 and upper limit ii, find the structural length index, for
the wrist point of this robot.
8.4 [25] A steel shaft of length 30 cm and diameter 0.2 cm drives the input gear of a
reduction having 17 = 8. The output gear drives a steel shaft having length 30 cm
and diameter 0.3 cm. If the gears introduce no compliance of their own, what is
the overall stiffness of the transmission system?
8.5 [20] In Fig. 8.20, a link is driven through a shaft after a gear reduction. Model
the link as rigid with mass of 10 Kg located at a point 30 cm from the shaft axis.
Assume that the gears are rigid and that the reduction, is large. The shaft is
steel and must be 30 cm long, if the design specifications call for the center of link
mass to undergo accelerations of 2.0 g, what should the shaft diameter be to limit
dynamic deflections to 0.1 radian at the joint angle?

30
——

FIGURE 8.20: A link actuated through a shaft after a gear reduction.

 54 Chapter 2 Spatial descriptions and transformations

EXAMPLE 2.10
Give a method of computing the product of two rotation matrices, R R, that uses
fewer than 27 multiplications and 18 additions.
Where L. are the columns of and C, are the three columns of the result,
compute

C1 =
(2.98)

= C'1 x

which requires 24 multiplications and 15 additions.

BIBLIOGRAPHY
[1] B. Noble, Applied Linear Algebra, Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, 1969.
[2] D. Ballard and C. Brown, Computer Vision, Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, 1982.
[3] 0. Bottema and B. Roth, Theoretical Kinematics, North Holland, Amsterdam, 1979.
[4] R.P. Paul, Robot Manipulators, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 1981.
[5] I. Shames, Engineering Mechanics, 2nd edition, Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, NJ,
1967.
[6] Symon, Mechanics, 3rd edition, Addison-Wesley, Reading, IvIA, 1971.
[71 B. Gorla and M. Renaud, Robots Manipulateurs, Cepadues-Editions, Toulouse, 1984.

EXERCISES
2.1 [15] A vector Ap is rotated about ZA by 9 degrees and is subsequently rotated
about XA by degrees. Give the rotation matrix that accomplishes these rotations
in the given order.
2.2 [15] A vector Ap is rotated about by 30 degrees and is subsequently rotated
about XA by 45 degrees. Give the rotation matrix that accomplishes these rotations
in the given order.
2.3 [16] A frame {B} is located initially coincident with a frame {A}. We rotate {B}
about ZB by 9 degrees, and then we rotate the resulting frame about XB by 0
degrees. Give the rotation matrix that will change the descriptions of vectors from
Bp to Ap
2.4 [16] A frame {B} is located initially coincident with a frame {A}. We rotate {B}
about ZB by 30 degrees, and then we rotate the resulting frame about XB by 45
degrees. Give the rotation matrix that will change the description of vectors from
B p to A p.
2.5 [13] R is a 3 x 3 matrix with eigenvalues 1, and e_W, where i = What
is the physical meaning of the eigenvector of R associated with the eigenvalue 1?
2.6 [21] Derive equation (2.80).
2.7 [24] Describe (or program) an algorithm that extracts the equivalent angle and
axis of a rotation matrix. Equation (2.82) is a good start, but make sure that your
algorithm handles the special cases 8 = 0° and 9 = 180°.
 Exercises 55
2.8 [29] Write a subroutine that changes representation of orientation from rotation-
matrix form to equivalent angle—axis form. A Pascal-style procedure declaration
would begin
Procedure RNTOAA (VAR R:mat33; VAR K:vec3; VAR theta: real);
Write another subroutine that changes from equivalent angle—axis representation
to rotation-matrix representation:
Procedure AATORN(VAR K:vec3; VAR theta: real: VAR R:nat33);
Write the routines in C if you prefer.
Run these procedures on several cases of test data back-to-back and verify that
you get back what you put in. Include some of the difficult cases!
2.9 [27] Do Exercise 2.8 for roll, pitch, yaw angles about fixed axes.
2.10 [27] Do Exercise 2.8 for Z—Y—Z Euler angles.
2.11 [10] Under what condition do two rotation matrices representing finite rotations
commute? A proof is not required.
2.12 [14] A velocity vector is given by
r 10.0
Bv1200
L
30.0

Given
0.866 —0.500 0.000 11.0
A 0.500 0.866 0.000 —3.0
BT = 0.000 0.000 1.000 9.0
0 0 0 1

compute A
2.13 [21] The following frame definitions are given as known:
r 0.866 —0.500 0.000 11.0
u I
0.500 0.866 0.000 —1.0
AT 0.000 1.000 8.0
= I
0.000
Lo 0 0 1

1.000 0.000 0.000 0.0

B 0.000 0.866 —0.500 10.0
AT = 0.000 0.500 0.866 —20.0
0 0 0 1

r 0.866 —0.500 0.000 —3.0

c I
0.433 0.750 —0.500 —3.0
= I
0.250 0.433 0.866 3.0
Lo 0 0 1

Draw a frame diagram (like that of Fig. 2.15) to show their arrangement qualita-
tively, and solve for
2.14 [31] Develop a general formula to obtain T, where, starting from initial coinci-
dence, {B} is rotated by about where passes through the point Ap (not
through the origin of {A} in general).
2.15 [34] {A} and {B) are frames differing only in orientation. {B} is attained as
follows: starting coincident with {A}, (B] is rotated by radians about unit vector
K—that is,
=
 ________

58 Chapter 2 Spatial descriptions and transformations

rotation matrix that is equivalent to the Z—Y—Z Euler-angle set (ci, $, y). (The
result is given by (2.72).)
2.20 [2011 Imagine rotating a vector Q about a vector K by an amount 6 to form a new
vector, Q'—that is,
Q' =
Use (2.80) to derive Rodriques's formula,

Q' = Qcos6 + sin0(1 x Q) + (1— C058)(le.

2.21 [15] For rotations sufficiently small that the approximations sin 8 = 6, cos 6 = 1,
and 62 = 0 hold, derive the rotation-matrix equivalent to a rotation of 8 about a
general axis, Start with (2.80) for your derivation.
2.22 [20] Using the result from Exercise 2.21, show that two infinitesimal rotations
commute (i.e., the order in which the rotations are performed is not important).
2.23 [25] Give an algorithm to construct the definition of a frame T from three points
Up1 Up2 and Up3 where the following is known about these points:

1 Up1 js at the origin of {A};

2. Up2 lies somewhere on the positive X axis of {A};
3• Up3 lies near the positive axis in the XY plane of {A).
2.24 [45] Prove Cayley's formula for proper orthonormal matrices.
2.25 [30] Show that the eigenvalues of a rotation matrix are 1, and where
=
2.26 [33] Prove that any Euler-angle set is sufficient to express all possible rotation
matrices.
2.27 [15] Referring to Fig. 2.25, give the value
2.28 [15] Referring to Fig. 2.25, give the value
2.29 [15] Referring to Fig. 2.25, give the value of T.
2.30 [15] Referring to Fig. 2.25, give the value of T.
2.31 [15] Referring to Fig. 2.26, give the value of T.

FIGURE 2.25: Frames at the corners of a wedge.

 Programming exercise (Part 2) 59

FIGURE 2.26: Frames at the corners of a wedge.

2.32 [15] Referring to Fig. 2.26, give the value

2.33 [15] Referring to Fig. 2.26, give the value of T.
2.34 [15] Referring to Fig. 2.26, give the value of
2.35 [20] Prove that the determinant of any rotation matrix is always equal to 1.
2.36 [36] A rigid body moving in a plane (i.e., in 2-space) has three degrees of freedom.
A rigid body moving in 3-space has six degrees of freedom. Show that a body in
N-space has (N2 + N) degrees of freedom.
2.37 [15] Given
0.25 0.43 0.86 5.0
A 0.87 —0.50 0.00 —4.0
BT — 0.43 0.75 —0.50 3.0
0 0 0 1

what is the (2,4) element of T?

2.38 [25] Imagine two unit vectors, v1 and v2, embedded in a rigid body. Note that, no
matter how the body is rotated, the geometric angle between these two vectors is
preserved (i.e., rigid-body rotation is an "angle-preserving" operation). Use this
fact to give a concise (four- or five-line) proof that the inverse of a rotation matrix
must equal its transpose and that a rotation matrix is orthonormal.
2.39 [37] Give an algorithm (perhaps in the form of a C program) that computes the
unit quaternion corresponding to a given rotation matrix. Use (2.91) as starting
point.
2.40 [33] Give an algorithm (perhaps in the form of a C program) that computes the
Z—X—Z Euler angles corresponding to a given rotation matrix. See Appendix B.
2.41 [33] Give an algorithm (perhaps in the form of a C program) that computes the
X—Y—X fixed angles corresponding to a given rotation matrix. See Appendix B.

PROGRAMMING EXERCISE (PART 2)

1. If your function library does not include an Atan2 function subroutine, write one.
2. To make a friendly user interface, we wish to describe orientations in the planar
world by a single angle, 9, instead of by a 2 x 2 rotation matrix. The user wifi always