A computer tool for simulation and analysis.pdfVIP

A computer tool for simulation and analysis: the Robotics Toolbox for MATLAB Peter I. Corke CSIRO Division of Manufacturing Technology pic@mlb.dmt.csiro.au Abstract. This paper introduces, in tutorial form, a Robotics Toolbox for MATLAB that allows the user to easily create and manipulate datatypes fundamental to robotics such as homogeneous transformations, quaternions and trajectories. Functions provided for arbitrary serial-link ma- nipulators include forward and inverse kinematics, and forward and inverse dynamics. The complete Toolbox and documentation is freely available via anonymous ftp. 1 Introduction MATLAB[1] is a powerful environment for linear algebra and graphical presentation that is available on a very wide range of computer platforms. The core functionality can be extended by application speci?c toolboxes. The Robotics Toolbox provides many functions that are required in robotics and addresses areas such as kinematics, dynamics, and trajectory generation. The Toolbox is useful for simulation as well as analyzing results from experiments with real robots, and can be a powerful tool for education. The Toolbox is based on a very general method of representing the kinematics and dynamics of serial-link manipulators by description matrices. These comprise, in the simplest case, the Denavit and Hartenberg parameters[2] of the robot and can be created by the user for any serial- link manipulator. A number of examples are provided for well known robots such as the Puma 560 and the Stanford arm. The manipulator description can be elaborated, by augmenting the matrix, to include link inertial, and motor inertial and frictional parameters. Such matrices provide a concise means of describing a robot model and may facilitate the sharing of robot models across the research community. This would allow simulation results to be compared in a much more meaningful way than is currently done in the literature. The Toolbox also provid