my-matlab-robotics-toolbox

📌 This repository is useful for quick simulation of robot motions using MATLAB, as it requires little to no setup. For more complex functionalities, one should probably use Peter Corke's RVC toolbox instead.

See demo_*.m files for some usage examples.

Table of contents 📖

• Introduction
  • Features
• How to install
• How to use
  • Demo
    • Upper-limb forward kinematics
• Troubleshooting
• Credits
  • Authors
  • Contributors
  • Maintainers

Introduction

A simple and straightforward implementation of the DH-parameters in MATLAB.

There are two different conventions on the implementation of the DH-parameters. This one uses the standard DH-parameters which can as well be found in this book chapter.

The results have been validated with Peter Corke's RVC toolbox.

Features

• Forward kinematics.
• Homogenous transformation of each link of the robot.
• Numerical Jacobian.
• Simple visualization, it can also be animated.
• Inverse kinematics with the pseudo-inverse method and damped least square method.
• Code generation ready.

Code description 💻

The repo main elements are:

• img folder. Contains the images included in this README.
• my-matlab-robotics-toolbox folder. Contains the core functions implementing the simple robotics toolbox.

Note

In the my-matlab-robotics-toolbox scripts, the following convention applies:

• cgr prefix means the code is code-generation ready.
• ncgr means the code is NOT code-generation ready.

• demo_*.m scripts. The demo_*.m files provide a sample usage of the toolbox. The name of the file should be self-explicative of the robot that it implements. These files should be considered the main file for out-of-the-box use.

Note

You can consider adding your own demo_*.m file to the repo.

• kine#.prj files. MATLAB Coder projects examples. Ignore them for basic usage of the package.

How to install

Install the my-matlab-robotics-toolbox package with

git clone https://github.com/Luca-Pozzi/my-matlab-robotics-toolbox.git

Alternatively, you can download the repo as a .zip file and extract it locally.

How to use

• Create a global variable N_DOFS and define the number of degrees-of-freedom of the robot in it. The reason why a global variable is used is because I keep having problems in using the dynamic memory allocation for MATLAB coder. Therefore, I use a global variable to define the dimension of the necessary static arrays.

Note

The above problem affects you only if you are interested in compiling the MATLAB code.

• Create the robot structure with cgr_create.
• Actuate and update the joint with cgr_self_update functions.
• If necessary, plot the robot with ncgr_plot by first calling ncgr_graphic once at the beginning of the program.
• To create the compiled MEX or DLL files, two examples of MATLAB Coder project files are provided (kine#.prj files). This is where the global variable is used.

Demo

Upper-limb forward kinematics

TODO.

Troubleshooting

Issues with the present package are tracked in the repo Issues page. If you encounter a new problem, open a new Issue or contact a maintainer.

Credits

Authors

• Auralius Manurung, manurunga@yandex.com

Contributors

• Marta Gandolla, marta.gandolla@polimi.it
• Luca Pozzi, luca.pozzi@polimi.it

Maintainers

• Luca Pozzi, luca.pozzi@polimi.it