On rotations and translations with application to robot manipulators

Abstract

Robot motion is described by a set of positions and orientations of the robot's end-effector relative to some base coordinate system. Different methods to describe this motion are available and most of them are presented in this paper. Methods for position vector, free vector, and line vector transformation are presented and compared, and the advantages and disadvantages, the simplicity, and the number of arithmetic operations required of the different methods are addressed. An example of the application of these methods to a six degree-of-freedom robot is given.