M6236 Manufacturing Automation and Control

Homework 1 - Robotics
Coordinate Transformations
1. Find the coordinates of point P(2, 3, 4)T relative to the reference frame after a rotation of
45 about the x-axis.
2. A point P in space is defined as BP = [5, 3, 4]T relative to frame B and is attached to the
origin of the reference frame A and is parallel to it. Apply the following transformations
to frame B and find AP.

Rotate 90 about the x-axis

Then translate 3 units about the y-axis, 6 units about the z-axis, and 5 units about
the x-axis
Then, rotate 90 about the z-axis

Robot System and Application

3. A food manufacturing company plans to use industrial robots to automate the production
of vacuum-packed retort tray meal for retail business. A retort tray meal consists of
cooked rice, meat and vegetables putting in a plastic boxed tray. The manual
manufacturing process of making the tray meal starts from cooking the rice in industrial
grade rice cooker, meat and vegetables in separate cooking pans respectively. After the
food are cooked, workers in the kitchen need to assemble the tray meal by putting
rice, meat and vegetables in the proper positions in the tray for esthetical purpose. The
kitchen worker first will scoop the rice from the rice cooker, shape and weigh the rice
dough, and finally put the rice in the tray uses a utensil. Similar procedures are used to
dispense the cooked meat and vegetables to the tray.
For automated tray meal production, the layout of the rice plate holding the cooked rice
and the transfer line with meal trays is shown in Figure 1.

Figure 1: Tray meal manufacturing line

(a) Determine a suitable type of robot manipulators for the rice-dispensing task based on
the actions of scooping, moving, orienting, and dispensing the rice to the designated
tray, and state the reason. Note that the end-effector to shape and weigh the rice
needs NOT to be considered.
(b) Describe the necessary features of the robot manipulator need to have when putting
in such kitchen environment for food production. Note that the kitchen workers will
still be walking around in the kitchen near the robot.
Robot kinematics
4. A three-link RRP robot manipulator is shown in Figure 2. Link frame 0 and frame 3
represent the base frame and the end-effector frame of the manipulator. The directions
and assignments of the z-axes of all link frames are all shown in the figure. Axes z0 and z1
are mutually perpendicular intersecting axes. Axes z1 and z2 are mutually perpendicular
but with an offset of l1. The orientation and location of the end-effector frame 3 are
indicated according to x3 and z3 axes.
(a) Indicate the location and orientation of the link frames 1 and 2 according to the
Denavit-Hartenberg parameter method on the figure. (You need to draw the x1 and
x2 axes in the figure.)
(b) Determine the Denavit-Hartenberg parameters of this robot manipulator based on the
dimensions given and fill them in the table.
(c) Compute the transformation matrices, A10 , A21 , and A32 based on the DenavitHartenberg parameters and derive the forward kinematics of the manipulator.
(d) Determine the Jacobian matrix of the end-effector position and orientation with
respect to the joint displacements.

Figure 2

[Q4: Please submit this sheet along with your answers with the drawing of frames]

Denavit-Hartenberg parameters of RRP manipulator:
Link #
1
2
3

Join angle

Joint Offset di

Twist angle

Link length ai

5. A 6-DOF articulate robot manipulator is shown in Figure 3. The robot is at its home
position without the end-effector. Link frame 0 represents the base frame of the
manipulator. The directions and assignments of the z-axes of all link frames are all shown
in the figure. Axes z0 and z1 are mutually perpendicular intersecting axes. Axes z1, z2 and
z3 are parallel. Axes z3 and z4 are mutually perpendicular intersecting axes; axes z4 and z5
are also mutually perpendicular intersecting axes.
(a) Indicate the location and orientation of the link frames 1 to 5 according to the
Denavit-Hartenberg parameter method on the figure in the Appendix. (You need to
draw all x -axes in the figure.)
(b) Determine the Denavit-Hartenberg parameters of this robot manipulator based on the
dimensions given and fill them in the table in the Appendix.
(c) Determine the transformation matrices, A10 , A21 , A32 , A43 , and A54 based on the
Denavit-Hartenberg parameters and derive the forward kinematics of the manipulator.

Figure 3

[Q5: Please submit this sheet along with your answers with the drawing of frames]

Denavit-Hartenberg parameters of 6-DOF articulate manipulator without end-effector:

Link #
1
2
3
4
5

Join angle

Joint Offset di

Twist angle

Link length ai

Frame Transformations
6. A robotic workcell with two robot manipulators and a camera is set up as shown in Figure
4 for vision-guided assembly task using two robots. The global reference frame is
denoted as {O} and the base frames of Robot 1 and Robot 2 as {B1} and {B2}. The robot
end-effector frames are denoted as {W1} and {W2}. A fixed camera for vision-guided
control is described by frame {C}. The tool location is described by frame {E}.
O
The positions and orientations TB1O , TB2
and TCO are given. The postures of the end-

effectors TWB11 and TWB22 are also given by robot kinematics.

i.)

Robot 1 holds a tool positioned at TEW 1 , not accurately known. However, the
camera can see the posture of the tool TEC accurately. Determine the
transformation equation to compute the unknown tool posture TEW 1 based on the
position and orientation of Robot 1 and the camera given above.

ii.)

Determine the transformation equation to compute the position and orientation

error between the end-effector of Robot 2 and the tool TEW 2 based on the position
and orientation of the robots and the camera given above.

Figure 4