Abstract
Robots are the main part of flexible manufacturing systems. They are used in various applications where human work can be replaced and automated. In this project, I have simulated a robotic arm manipulator with six degrees of freedom in MATLAB. There are various applications where a robotic arm is used like painting, carpentry and hardware verification. In hardware verification labs, robotic arms are used to hold passive and power rail probes that connect from instruments like scopes and power supplies to pcb boards to protect the pcb layout from rip off due to sudden movement of the probes. Robot kinematics uses the geometry (position and orientation) of rigid bodies (links) and joints to control the movement of the robot. In this project, I have demonstrated the forward and inverse kinematics of a robot to control its movement. Forward kinematics calculates the end-effector position of the robot using the angles of the joints. Inverse kinematics calculates the angles of the joints with the end-effector position as the reference. There are several methods to calculate the forward and inverse kinematics such as analytical methods, numerical hit and trial, and iterative methods. The complexity of the vi kinematics increases as a function of the workspace of the manipulator. Thus, I have adopted the DH parameters to calculate the forward and inverse kinematics.