Software for the kinematic analysis of a serial manipulator for academic purposes

This paper addresses the development of software created at the Universidad Pontificia Bolivariana, located in Medellin, Colombia, for the direct and reverse analyses of a serial robot manipulator. Results provided for the software are used for the simulation of the manipulator and also provides data for the control of a serial manipulator prototype. Both, the prototype and its control system were also developed at the University as part of a project to establish a robotics lab. Since joint angles control is affected by the complex relationships presented in the gear transmission mechanisms, the kinematics of gear transmissions is also studied. In this way appropriate mappings between actuators, links and the Cartesian space are established. Software requirements, architecture, and its implementation are addressed. The software includes user-friendly graphical environments that allow one to navigate through all the capabilities of the program. The software has been tested intensively in the prototype and can be extended to serial manipulators with the same structure but different dimensions. Authors expect that virtual tools as the presented in this paper, can help to reduce the time to understand concepts related to motion analysis in the fields of robotics.