SE2 & Forward Kinematics
In our previous blog on robotic grasping , we briefly broached the topic of Inverse Kinematics (IK) and Jacobians. In this blog, we will establish some fundamentals about the mathematics behind Robot Arm Kinematics that will allow us to dive deeper. The SE(2) Group The Special Euclidean group (SE2) [group being a mathematical set and operations that satisfy some laws] can be used to represent the rigid transformations of a planar object, a 2D arm, on a plane. We are going to first use a 2D arm, composed of a set of joints and links and see how we can make its end-effector reach certain parts of the 2D workspace, before going on to see if we can do the same in 3D (the space occupied by real-world robotic arms). Concretely, each joint of the 2D arm has a 2D coordinate frame attached to it, which is described relative to the 2D coordinate frame of the previous joint, all the way down from the end effector to the base of the robot. These coordinate transforms in 2D space can be repres...