ME – 489:

Robotics and Automation

LECTURE 2: SPATIAL DESCRIPTION AND TRANSFORMATIONS
 Point and Vector
 A vector is a movement that you can make. like “2 steps north, 3 steps east”
 A point is a position. it’s a place in the room. like “the south east corner” or “the
center”.
 Notice that a vector doesn’t say where you start or end. Just how you should
move.
 Some operations mix the two. You can take a point and add a vector (start in the
center of the room, go 2 steps north and 3 steps east). You can take two points
and talk about the vector between them (how do you need to talk to get between
the points).

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 Point and Vector
 Vectors don't normally represent a position, rather they represent a direction and
magnitude.
 So if you subtract a point from another point, you get a vector- subtraction gives
you a displacement vector
 If you add a point and a vector, you get another point.
 A point is just a vector with a known origin.
 You can add 2 vectors and get a vector – resultant vector
https://graphics.cs.wisc.edu/WP/cs559-fall2014/2014/08/28/points-vectors-and-
coordinate-systems-why-are-points-and-vectors-different/

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 Representing Position and Orientation
 How to describe a position in space?

 How to describe an orientation in space?

 Pose: Combination of position and orientation

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 Representing Position and Orientation
 Convention: Attach coordinate frame to an object. It enables
us to describe the pose (position and orientation) of an object
with respect to reference coordinate frame. Each frame is
given a name.
 Assumption: object is rigid

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 Representing Position and Orientation
 How many dimensions are required to completely describe the pose of an
object?

Frame
Reference being described
coordinate
frame

Relative pose of frame {B} with respect to frame {A}

NOTE: If superscript is missing, we assume the change

is w.r.t world coordinate frame denoted as {O}.

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 Representing Position and Orientation
An important characteristic of relative poses is that they can be
combined/composed together.

*Pose of {C} relative to {A} can be obtained

by compounding the relative poses from {A}
to {B} and {B} to {C}. We use the operator ⊕
to indicate Composition of relative poses.

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 Representing Position and Orientation
An important characteristic of relative poses is that they can be combined/composed together

For this case the point P can be described by

Till now we have seen 2D coordinate frames. It is applicable to many robotic systems
especially mobile robots that operate in planar world. However for many other robots,
we require 3D coordinate frames.

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 Representing Position and Orientation

Spatial Relationships

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 Representing Position and Orientation
Algebraic Rules:

combination

Not commutative with exception

of their sum being zero
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 Representing Position and Orientation

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 Representing Position and Orientation

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 Representing Position and Orientation

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 Representing Position and Orientation

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 Representing Position and Orientation

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 Representing Position and Orientation

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 Representing Position and Orientation

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 Representing Position and Orientation

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 Representing Position and Orientation

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 Representing Position and Orientation

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 Representing Position and Orientation

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 Representing Position and Orientation

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 Representing Position and Orientation

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 Working in 2D

Describe frame
{B} with respect to
frame {A}

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 Working in 2D
We introduce another frame {V} whose
axis are parallel to frame {A} but origin
lies on frame {B}. Point P can be
expressed in terms of frame {V} as:

Eq 1

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 Working in 2D
Frame {B} can be described using its
orthogonal axes as:

We can represent point P wrt frame {B} as:

Eq 2

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 Working in 2D – Orthonormal Rotation Matrix
Equate equations 1 and 2, to see how points are transformed
when frame is rotated.

Rotation Matrix: transforms a

point P from one frame to the
other. It is denoted by VRB

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 Working in 2D – Orthonormal Rotation Matrix
Properties of rotation matrix

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 Example 2.1

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 Example 2.1

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 Example 2.1

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 Three-Angle Representations
 Euler’s rotation theorem states that any rotation can be represented by not more
than three rotations about coordinate axes.
 This means that in general an arbitrary rotation between frames can be
decomposed into a sequence of three rotation angles and associated rotation axes.
 Euler’s rotation theorem requires successive rotation about three axes such that
no two successive rotations are about the same axis.
 There are two classes of rotation sequence: Eulerian and Cardanian, named after
Euler and Cardano respectively
Euler: XYX, XZX, YXY, YZY, ZXZ, or ZYZ
Cardanian: XYZ, XZY, YZX, YXZ, ZXY, or ZYX

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 Three-Angle Representations
 Euler-Angles: Most common sequence: ZYZ

 Cardanian Angles: roll-pitch-yaw sequence as ZYX or XYZ depending on of it is a

mobile robot or a robotic arm.
 Convention for vehicles (ships, aircraft and cars): x-axis points in the forward
direction and z-axis points either up or down.

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 Three-Angle Representations
 It is intuitive to apply the rotations in following sequence (ZYX angle sequence):
1. yaw (direction of travel)
2. pitch (elevation of the front with respect to horizontal) and
3. roll (rotation about the forward axis of the vehicle)

 Convention for robot gripper: the z-axis points forward and the x-axis is either
up or down. This leads to the XYZ angle sequence

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 Pose in 3D
 Similar to 2D case
 Transformation of frame {B} wrt frame {A}

If points are represented by homogeneous coordinate vectors

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 Operators: Translation, Rotation and
Transformation

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 Operators: Translation, Rotation and
Transformation

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 Operators: Translation, Rotation and
Transformation

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 Operators: Translation, Rotation and
Transformation

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 Operators: Translation, Rotation and
Transformation

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 Example 2.2

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 Example 2.2

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 Example 2.3

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 Example 2.3

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 Example 2.3

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 Any Questions?

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 Self Study

Introduction to Robotics (3rd Edition)

By John J. Craig
Topics 2.1 to 2.5

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 Quiz 1:

Describe as many uses of robots as you can.

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 That’s it for today.

See you next week!

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