MTS-800 Advanced

Robotics I

Lecture 2

Spring 2023 DR AMIR HAMZA Dr. Amir Hamza – Spring

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Spatial Descriptions and Transformations

• Robotic manipulation, by definition, implies that parts and tools will be moved
around in space by some sort of mechanism.

• This naturally leads to a need for representing positions and orientations of parts,
of tools, and of the mechanism itself.

• To define and manipulate mathematical quantities that represent position and

orientation, we must define coordinate systems and develop conventions for
representation

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Universe Coordinate System
• We adopt the philosophy that somewhere there is a universe coordinate system to
which everything we discuss can be referenced.

• We will describe all positions and orientations with respect to the universe
coordinate system or with respect to other Cartesian coordinate systems that are
(or could be) defined relative to the universe system

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Description of a Position
• Once a coordinate system is established, we can locate any point in the universe
with a 3 × 1 position vector.

• Components of 𝐴𝑃 have numerical values that indicate distances along the axes of
{A}
• Each of these distances along an axis can be
thought of as the result of projecting the vector
onto the corresponding axis

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Description of Orientation
• Positions of points are described with vectors and
orientations of bodies are described with an attached
coordinate system

• One way to describe the body attached coordinate

system, {B}, is to write the unit vectors of its three
principal axes in terms of the coordinate system {A}

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Description of Orientation – Rotation Matrix
• We denote the unit vectors giving the principal directions of coordinate system{B}
as 𝑋෠𝐵 , 𝑌෠𝐵 , 𝑍መ𝐵

• When written in terms of {A} they are written as

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Description of Orientation – Rotation Matrix
• Each component of 𝐵𝐴𝑅 can be written as the dot product of a pair of unit vectors

• Rows of the matrix are the unit vectors of {A} expressed in {B}; that is

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Description of Orientation – Rotation Matrix
• This suggests that the inverse of a rotation matrix is equal to its transpose, a fact
that can be easily verified as

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 Description of an Orientation

Example ZA
YB
{A}

1 0 0
AR = 0 0 -1 ZB YA
B
0 1 0 {B}

XA
XB

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 Rotated frames – General Notation

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Description of a Frame
• The information needed to completely specify the whereabouts of the manipulator
hand is a position and an orientation

• 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

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Description of a Frame

• There are three frames that are shown along

with the universe coordinate system.

• Frames {A} and {B} are known relative to the

universe coordinate system, and frame {C} is
known relative to frame {A}

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Mappings: Changing Descriptions from Frame to Frame
• In Robotics, we are concerned with expressing the same quantity in terms of
various reference coordinate systems.

• The previous section introduced descriptions of positions, orientations, and frames

• We now consider the mathematics of mapping in order to change descriptions

from frame to frame

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Mappings Involving Translated Frames

• In this simple example, we have illustrated mapping a

vector from one frame to another.

• The quantity itself (here, a point in space) is not changed; only its description is
changed.

• 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}
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Mappings Involving Rotated Frames
• The rotation matrix describes frame {B} relative to frame {A}, it was named with
𝐴
𝐵𝑅

• Because the columns of 𝐵𝐴𝑅 are the unit vectors of {B} written in {A}, the rows of
𝐴
𝐵𝑅 are the unit vectors of {A} written in {B}

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Mappings Involving Rotated Frames
• In order to calculate 𝐴𝑃, we note that the components of any
vector are simply the projections of that vector onto the unit
directions of its frame

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Example
A frame {B} that is rotated relative to frame {A} about 𝑍መ by
30 degrees. Here, 𝑍መ is pointing out of the page.

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Mappings Involving General Frames

• We consider the general case of mapping.

• The origin of frame {B} is not coincident with that of frame {A} but has a general
vector offset. The vector that locates {B}’s origin is called 𝐴𝑃 𝐵𝑂𝑅𝐺 .
• Also {B} is rotated with respect to {A}, as described by 𝐵𝐴𝑅

• Given 𝐵𝑃, we wish to compute 𝐴𝑃

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Mappings Involving General Frames

The more appealing form is as follows:

This aids in writing compact equations

and is conceptually clearer

We define a 4 × 4 matrix operator and use 4 × 1 position vectors, so that the

structure is:

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Mappings Involving General Frames

The 4×4 matrix 𝐵𝐴𝑇 is called a homogeneous transform

• Although homogeneous transforms are useful in writing compact equations, a

computer program to transform vectors would generally not use them, because of
time wasted multiplying ones and zeros.

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Example

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Operators: Translations, Rotations, And Transformations
• Translational Operator
• A translation moves a point in space a finite distance along a given vector direction

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Rotation Operator

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Transformation Operator

The transform that rotates by R and translates by Q is the same as the transform
that describes a frame rotated by R and translated by Q relative to the reference
frame

Example

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Transformation Arithmetic
Compound Transformations
We have 𝐶 𝑃 and wish to find 𝐴𝑃

Frame {C} is known relative to frame {B}

and frame {B} is known relative to
frame {A}. We can transform 𝐶 𝑃 into 𝐵𝑃 as

then we can transform 𝐵𝑃 into 𝐴𝑃 as

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Transformation Arithmetic

Inverting Transform

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Example
Figure 2.13 shows a frame {B} that is rotated relative to frame {A} about 𝑍መ by 30 degrees and
translated four units in 𝑋෠𝐴 and three units in 𝑌෠𝐴 . Thus, we have a description of 𝐵𝐴𝑇 . Find 𝐵𝐴𝑇

The frame defining {B} is

Using 2.45, we compute

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 Transformation Arithmetic

Transformation matrices multiplication is not

commutative

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Transform Equations

Consider that all transforms are known except 𝐵𝐶 𝑇

Here, we have one transform equation and
one unknown transform; hence, we easily find its solution
to be

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Transform Equations

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Example

𝐵 𝐵 𝑆 𝐵 𝐵 𝑇
𝐺 𝑇= 𝑆𝑇 𝐺 𝑇 𝐺 𝑇= 𝑇𝑇 𝐺 𝑇

Equating above two to get the bolt frame

Relative to the hand frame

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More on Representation of Orientation
• Orientation is by giving a 3 × 3 rotation matrix.

• Rotation matrices are special in that all columns are mutually orthogonal and have
unit magnitude

• Determinant of Rotation matrices is always equal to +1 (Proper Orthonormal)

Cayley’s formula for orthonormal matrices

For any proper orthonormal matrix R, there exists a skew-symmetric matrix S such
that

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More on Representation of Orientation
• Therefore any 3 × 3 rotation matrix can be specified by just three parameters

• This means there are six constraints on the nine elements of a rotation matrix

• 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
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Example

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X-Y-Z Fixed Angles

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X-Y-Z Fixed Angles

The inverse problem, that of extracting equivalent X–Y–Z fixed angles from a
rotation matrix, is often of interest

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X-Y-Z Fixed Angles

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X-Y-Z Fixed Angles

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Z-Y-X Euler Angles

• In this representation, each rotation is

performed about an axis of the moving
system {B} rather than one of the fixed
reference {A}

• Such sets of three rotations are called

Euler Angles
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Z-Y-X Euler Angles

Relations for finding Z-Y-X Euler angles from a given rotation matrix are exactly
same as the X-Y-Z Fixed Angles (as the rotation matrix is same)

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Z–Y–Z Euler angles

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Z–Y–Z Euler angles

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Other Angle-Set Conventions

• In the preceding subsections we have seen three conventions for specifying

orientation: X–Y–Z fixed angles, Z–Y–X Euler angles, and Z–Y–Z Euler angles.

• Each of these conventions requires performing three rotations about principal axes
in a certain order.

• These conventions are examples of a set of 24 conventions that we will call angle-
set conventions

• Of these, 12 conventions are for fixed-angle sets, and 12 are for Euler-angle sets.

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Equivalent angle-axis representations

෡ is sometimes called the equivalent axis of a finite rotation.

• Vector 𝐾

෡ 𝜃) or 𝑅𝐾 (𝜃)
• A general orientation of {B} relative to {A} may be written as 𝐵𝐴𝑅(𝐾,
and will be called the equivalent angle–axis representation.

• The specification of the vector 𝐴𝐾෡ requires only two parameters, because its
length is always taken to be one.

෡
• The angle specifies a third parameter. Often, we will multiply the unit direction, 𝐾
with the amount of rotation, θ, to form a compact 3 × 1 vector description of
orientation, denoted by K (no ‘‘hat’’)
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Equivalent angle-axis representations

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Equivalent angle-axis representations

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Example

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 Equivalent angle-axis representations

Example

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