Robot, Mechanics and Control October 22nd, 2019

Lecture 6
Time and Motion

Dr. Muhammad Jawad Khan

Robotics and Intelligent Machine Engineering Department,

School of Mechanical and Manufacturing,
National University of Sciences and Technology,
Islamabad, Pakistan.
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Time and Motion

• How pose changes over time?

• Linear and Angular velocity of rigid bodies
• Motion of a Manipulator

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 Basics – Linear Velocity

• Derivative of a vector

• The velocity of a position vector can be thought

of as the linear velocity of the point in space
represented by the position vector.
• It is important to indicate the frame in which the
vector is differentiated.
• Velocity vector when expressed in terms of frame
{A}
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Basics – Linear Velocity
Frame wrt which
Frame wrt which
position vector is
resulting velocity
differentiated
vector is
expressed

Leading superscript can be omitted when expressed in terms of itself

we can always remove the outer, leading superscript by explicitly including the
rotation matrix that accomplishes the change in reference frame

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 Basics – Linear Velocity

• Generally, the velocity of the origin of a frame is

considered relative to some understood universe
reference frame.

• we use the notation to refer to the velocity of the

origin of frame {C}
• What is
velocity of the origin of frame {C} expressed in terms of frame {A}
(though differentiation was done relative to {U})

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Example

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 Basics – Angular Velocity

• Angular velocity vector – symbol Ω

• Linear velocity describes an attribute of a point,
• Angular velocity describes an attribute of a body.
• We always attach a frame to the bodies, therefore
angular velocity describes rotational motion of a
frame

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Basics – Angular Velocity

• AΩB describes the rotation of frame B relative

to frame A

• Physically, at any instant, the direction of AΩB

indicates the instantaneous axis of rotation of
{B} relative to {A}, and the magnitude of AΩB
indicates the speed of rotation.
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Basics – Angular Velocity

• An angular velocity vector may be expressed in any

coordinate system, and so another leading superscript
may be added; for example, C(AΩB) is the angular
velocity of frame {B} relative to {A} expressed in
terms of frame{C}
• Simplified notation: angular velocity of frame (C)
relative to some understood reference frame, (U)

• the angular velocity of frame (C) expressed in terms

of (A) (though the angular velocity is with respect to
(U)).

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 Linear and Angular Velocities of Rigid Bodies

• We focus on motion of rigid body with regards to

velocity
• We therefore extend the notions of translations
and orientations described earlier to the time-
varying case
• We attach a coordinate system to any body that
we wish to describe. Then, motion of rigid bodies
can be equivalently studied as the motion of
frames relative to one another.

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 Linear and Angular Velocities of Rigid Bodies

• Linear Velocity
Consider a frame {B} attached to a rigid body. We wish to
describe the motion of {B} relative to frame {A}. For this
time instant assume no change in orientation of B relative to
A i.e. motion of Q is due to APBORG or BQ changing in time

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 Linear and Angular Velocities of Rigid Bodies

• Rotational Velocity
–let us consider two frames with coincident origins and with zero
linear relative velocity; their origins will remain coincident for all
time.
–The orientation of frame {B} with respect to frame {A} is
changing in time
–rotational velocity of {B} relative to {A} is described by a vector
called AΩB

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 Linear and Angular Velocities of Rigid Bodies

• Let us consider that the vector Q is constant as

viewed from frame {B}; that is
• Even though it is constant relative to {B}, it is
clear that point Q will have a velocity as seen
from {A} that is due to the rotational velocity AΩB

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 Linear and Angular Velocities of Rigid Bodies

• To solve for the velocity of point Q, as observed from

frame {A}, figure shows two instants of time as vector Q
rotates around AΩB
We can figure out both the direction and
the magnitude of the change in the vector
as viewed from {A}

• The differential change in AQ must be

perpendicular to both AΩB and AQ

• The magnitude of the differential change

is

• These conditions on magnitude and

direction immediately suggest the vector
cross product

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 Linear and Angular Velocities of Rigid Bodies

• Rotational Velocity

• In the general case, the vector Q could also be

changing with respect to frame {B}, so, adding
this component, we have

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 Linear and Angular Velocities of Rigid Bodies

• Linear + Rotational Velocity

the derivative of a vector in a moving frame as seen from a stationary

frame.

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 Linear and Angular Velocities of Rigid Bodies

• Mathematical Insight of Angular Velocity

We can derive an interesting relationship between the derivative of an orthonormal

matrix and a certain skew-symmetric matrix as follows. For any n x n orthonormal
matrix, R, we have
n x n identity
matrix
Differentiating by
product rule

Using the property

Let

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 Linear and Angular Velocities of Rigid Bodies

• Velocity of a point due to rotating reference frame

Consider a fixed vector BP unchanging with respect to frame (B). Its description in
another frame {A} is given as

or

Substituting for BP

the skew-symmetric matrix we have introduced is called

the angular-velocity matrix
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 Linear and Angular Velocities of Rigid Bodies

• Skew-Symmetric Matrices and Vector Cross-Product

If we assign the elements in a skew-symmetric matrix S
as

and define the 3 x 1 column vector

Angular Velocity
Vector

then it is easily verified that

where P is any vector, and x is the vector cross-product

Hence

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Matrix Exponential

where θ is the rotation angle, and the notation [·]×: R-> R2×2 indicates a mapping
from
a scalar to a skew-symmetric matrix.
In 2 dimensions the skew-symmetric matrix
is

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Matrix Exponential

Consider a pure rotation of 0.3 radians expressed as a rotation

matrix

We can compute the logarithm of this matrix using the MATLAB built in function logm

Note that the result is a simple matrix with two

elements having a magnitude of 0.3, which
intriguingly is the original rotation angle
The inverse of a logarithm is exponentiation and using the built in MATLAB matrix
exponential function expm
We can conclude that rotation matrix is
simply the exponential of skew symmetric
matrix. Hence we can represent the rotation
matrix by a single parameter θ

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Understanding the Exponential Mapping

• Consider a point P, defined by a coordinate vector p, being

rotated with an angular velocity ω which is a vector whose
direction defines the axis of rotation and whose magnitude ||ω||
specifies the rate of rotation about the axis which we assume
passes through the origin. We wish to rotate the point by an
angle θ about this axis and the velocity of the point is known
from mechanics to be

replace the cross product with a skew-symmetric matrix giving a matrix-vector

product

First order ODE solution

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Understanding the Exponential Mapping

First order ODE solution

If ||ω|| = 1 then after t seconds the vector will have rotated by t radians. We
require
a rotation by θ so we can set t = θ to give

vector p(0) being rotated to p(θ ). A matrix that rotates a vector is a rotation
matrix, and this implies that our matrix exponential is a rotation matrix

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Understanding the Exponential Mapping

• General case of rotation + translation

rearranging into matrix form

introducing homogeneous coordinates

where Σ is a 4 × 4 augmented skew-symmetric matrix. Again, by analogy with the

scalar case we can write the solution as

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Motion of the Links of the Robot

• link frame {0} is our reference frame

• Vi is the linear velocity and ωi is the angular
velocity of frame {i}
• At any instant, each link of a robot in motion
has some linear and angular velocity

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Velocity Propagation from Link to Link

• We now consider the problem of calculating

the linear and angular velocities of the links of
a robot.

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 Velocity Propagation from Link to Link

• A manipulator is a chain of bodies, each one capable of

motion relative to its neighbors.
• The velocity of link i + 1 will be that of link i, plus
whatever new velocity components were added by
joint i + 1
Rotational velocities can be added
when both ω vectors are written with
respect to the same frame. Therefore,
the angular velocity of link i + 1 is the
same as that of link i plus a new
component caused by rotational
velocity at joint i + 1

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Velocity Propagation from Link to Link

• Remember that linear velocity is associated

with a point, but angular velocity is associated
with a body. Hence, the term "velocity of a
link" here means the linear velocity of the
origin of the link frame and the rotational
velocity of the link

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 Velocity Propagation from Link to Link

By premultiplying both sides by i+1Ri, we can find the description of the

angular velocity of link i + 1 with respect to frame {i + 1}

Important Result 1

The linear velocity of the origin of frame {i + 1} is the

same as that of the origin of frame {i} plus a new
component caused by rotational velocity of link i.

By premultiplying both sides by i+1Ri

Important Result 2
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 Velocity Propagation from Link to Link

Results for Revolute Joints

Results for Prismatic

Joints

• Applying these equations

successively from link to link, we
can compute NωN and NvN the
rotational and linear velocities of
the last link
• If the velocities are desired in
terms of the base coordinate
system, they can be rotated into
base coordinates by
multiplication with 0RN

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Example

• A two-link manipulator with rotational joints is shown.

Calculate the velocity of the tip of the arm as a function
of joint rates. Give the answer in two forms—in terms
of frame {3} and also in terms of frame {O}

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Example

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Example

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Example

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Example

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Example

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