The kinematics of robotic wrists

Abstract

This paper examines the kinematics of robotic wrists by using the singular value decomposition (SVD) of the wrist Jacobian. Since the manipulator Jacobian of a wrist is relatively simple, it is possible to calculate the SVD in closed form via a simple matrix factorization. Once this has been accomplished, a variety of issues can be examined including kinematic singularities and the evaluation of the manipulability and dexterity measures. These results are then applied to robots with spherical wrists and a motion simulator.< <ETX xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">&gt;</ETX>