3. The Pose of a Robot

To control the movement of a robot, we need to understand and use some equations related to the position of the robot and its parts relative to both the world and to itself. This position is called the pose of the robot.

The pose of a robot tells us location of the robot in either two or three dimensions and also its orientation. That is, in what direction is it facing. For mobile robots, the pose can be a simple three element vector, but for arm-based robots, we often use a matrix to describe the pose.

If you’d like more information on vectors, matrices, matrix multiplication, and transforming vectors, look at the following Khan Academy videos:

• Vector introduction for linear algebra
• Introduction to matrices
• Introduction to matrix multiplication
• Introduction to identity matrix
• Transforming vectors using matrices

• 3.1. Transformations in 2-D
  • 3.1.1. Rotation of a Point
  • 3.1.2. Homogeneous Matrix
  • 3.1.3. Coordinate Transformations in 2-D
• 3.2. Transformations in 3-D
  • 3.2.1. Rotations in 3-D
  • 3.2.2. Homogeneous Matrices in 3-D