A Forward Kinematics approach towards Humanoid Robot handwriting

Abstract

Robot handwriting can be a useful and reliable method of receiving feedback from Humanoid Robots in environments where there are barriers to traditional speech synthesis techniques. It can also provide as an indispensable tool for aid in teaching and also in communicating with people having hearing disabilities. However, there are certain issues such as kinematic redundancy and the degrees of freedom problem that make robot handwriting difficult to implement. This study details the development of a Forward Kinematics approach to overcome these setbacks. The NAO Humanoid robot has been used as a model platform for testing and simulation of these algorithms. Kinematic equations have been derived for the NAO robot's right-arm and the theoretical joint angle parameters are then fed into the developed Choregraphe application for simulating the results. Additionally, the number of actively rotating joints has been minimized to reduce the chances of inducing motor fatigue. The handwriting results and optimization techniques have been enhanced and finally verified using motion curves.