Forward Kinematics Library

This repository can be use to compute the forward kinematics of an arbitrary serial robot.

Installation, tests and example.

Before installing

Before installing please ensure that you have downloaded and installed:

• cmake
• Eigen
• Abseil
• google_test and google_mock

Installation

To install the library, please git clone this repository and build in using cmake using the following set of commands:

git clone https://github.com/alaurens/kinematics.git
mkdir build
cd build 
cmake ../
cmake --build .

Running the tests and the example.

You should now be able to run the tests using:

ctest

As well as running the example executable main.cc with:

./main

You can play with the example by modifying the main.cc

Example

In the file main.cc, you will an example using the forward kinematics library applied to the three joint robot described in Fig 4.3 of the 2019 edition of "Modern Robotics Mechanics, Planning and Control." By Kevin M.Lynch and Frank C.Park.

You can modify the lengths of the links of the robot as well as the joint configuration the robot is in. You can then build and run the binary:

cmake --build .
./main

This will print out the solution to the forward kinemtics for the given joint configuration.

Using the library for a new serial robot

To use the library to compute the forward kinematics for your own robot you will need to implement and instance of the Robot interface located in include/robot.h The main function you will need to implement is the GetDHParameters which returns the list of Denavit-Hartenberg parameters for each joint of the robot starting with the joint closest to the base.

Once you have implemented the interface you will then be able to use your new robot class with the ForwardKinematics function. Congrats!