Manipulator Differential Kinematics: Part I: Kinematics, Velocity, and Applications

Manipulator kinematics is concerned with the motion of each link within a manipulator without considering mass or force. In this article, which first in two-part tutorial, we provide an introduction to modelling using elementary transform sequence (ETS). Then formulate first-order differential kinematics, leads Jacobian, basis for velocity control and inverse kinematics. We describe essential classical techniques rely on Jacobian before exhibiting some contemporary applications. Part II tutorial provides formulation second higher-order introduces Hessian, illustrates advanced techniques, improve performance demonstrated I. have provided Jupyter Notebooks accompany section tutorial. The are written Python code use Robotics Toolbox Python, Swift Simulator examples implementations algorithms. While not absolutely essential, most engaging informative experience, recommend working through while reading article. setup instructions can be accessed at https://github.com/jhavl/dkt.