Efficient robot arm modeling for computer control

Abstract

Abstract This article presents a comparative study of the required number of arithmetic operations necessary for computing robot arm models using the Denavit‐Hartenberg symbolic notation and a proposed one. The proposed notation is based on the idea of describing the motion of a robot joint by a pair matrix and the geometry of a link by a shape matrix. This notation needs the use of two coordinate systems for each joint or link. The results prove that the proposed notation reduces the computation time of robot models. For a 6‐degrees of freedom robot arm, the computation times of kinematic position, velocity, and dynamic models are reduced respectively by 20%, 5%, and 2%, respectively. The two notations have the same effects on computing the inverse models. © 1993 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.