Week 2- 2R Robotic Arm Challenge

Aim : To simulate the forward kinematics of a 2R Robotic Arm in MATLAB.

Body of the Content :

a) Code created in MATLAB :

% Inputs
l1 = 1;
l2 = 0.5;
theta1 = linspace(0,90,40);
theta2 = linspace(0,90,40);

ct=1
for i=1:length(theta1)
    Theta1 = theta1(i);
    for j = 1:length(theta2);
        Theta2 = theta2(j);
        
        x0 = 0;
        y0 = 0;
        
        x1 = l1*cosd(Theta1);
        y1 = l2*sind(Theta1);
        
        x2 = x1 + l2*cosd(Theta2);
        y2 = y1 + l2*sind(Theta2);
        
        % Plotting 
       plot([x0 x1],[y0 y1],[x1 x2],[y1 y2],'linewidth',3);
       axis([-0.1 1.5 0 1.5]);
       pause(0.03);
       M(ct) = getframe(gcf);
       ct = ct+1;     
       
    end 
end 

movie(M);
Videofile = VideoWriter('arm.avi','Uncompressed AVI');
open(videofile)
WriteVideo(videofile,M)
close(videofile)

b) Youtube Link of the output :

https://youtu.be/maLc_MOm9KA

c) Explanation :

• Here we are creating a robotic arm animation. To do that we create two arms by providing their end co-ordinates. Then by using the linspace command we give multiple orientations for those two arms.
• For every orientation of the arm1 exists a multiple orientations of arm2.
• We plot all of them together and stitch them together by using ct and getframe command which indvidually plays the program frame by frame as if its a real animation now.
• As we provide more values for the animation , meaning the orientation. The animation looks smoother.
• Then we created a movie by using the movie command, basically we are writing to a file here in a (.AVI) format and hence we create one.

Conclusion : Hence understood the working of the 2R Robotic arm and an animation was created which is saved and uploaded as a youtube link.