Forward kinematics

The kinematics equations of a serial chain of n links, with joint parameters θ_i are given by[5]

${\displaystyle [T]={}^{0}T_{n}=\prod _{i=1}^{n}{}^{i-1}T_{i}(\theta _{i}),}$

where ${\displaystyle {}^{i-1}T_{i}(\theta _{i})}$ is the transformation matrix from the frame of link ${\displaystyle i}$ to link ${\displaystyle i-1}$. In robotics, these are conventionally described by Denavit–Hartenberg parameters.[6]

The matrices associated with these operations are:

${\displaystyle \operatorname {Trans} _{Z_{i}}(d_{i})={\begin{bmatrix}1&0&0&0\\0&1&0&0\\0&0&1&d_{i}\\0&0&0&1\end{bmatrix}},\quad \operatorname {Rot} _{Z_{i}}(\theta _{i})={\begin{bmatrix}\cos \theta _{i}&-\sin \theta _{i}&0&0\\\sin \theta _{i}&\cos \theta _{i}&0&0\\0&0&1&0\\0&0&0&1\end{bmatrix}}.}$

Similarly,

${\displaystyle \operatorname {Trans} _{X_{i}}(a_{i,i+1})={\begin{bmatrix}1&0&0&a_{i,i+1}\\0&1&0&0\\0&0&1&0\\0&0&0&1\end{bmatrix}},\quad \operatorname {Rot} _{X_{i}}(\alpha _{i,i+1})={\begin{bmatrix}1&0&0&0\\0&\cos \alpha _{i,i+1}&-\sin \alpha _{i,i+1}&0\\0&\sin \alpha _{i,i+1}&\cos \alpha _{i,i+1}&0\\0&0&0&1\end{bmatrix}}.}$

The use of the Denavit-Hartenberg convention yields the link transformation matrix, [^i-1T_i] as

${\displaystyle \operatorname {} ^{i-1}T_{i}={\begin{bmatrix}\cos \theta _{i}&-\sin \theta _{i}\cos \alpha _{i,i+1}&\sin \theta _{i}\sin \alpha _{i,i+1}&a_{i,i+1}\cos \theta _{i}\\\sin \theta _{i}&\cos \theta _{i}\cos \alpha _{i,i+1}&-\cos \theta _{i}\sin \alpha _{i,i+1}&a_{i,i+1}\sin \theta _{i}\\0&\sin \alpha _{i,i+1}&\cos \alpha _{i,i+1}&d_{i}\\0&0&0&1\end{bmatrix}},}$

known as the Denavit-Hartenberg matrix.