The Inverse Kinematics Solution, Closed-form Dynamics and
Simulation of AdeptOne Industrial Robot
Pradeep K. Goel
Department of Electrical Engineering, University of Waterloo
Waterloo, Ontario, Canada, N2L 3G1
Abstract-This paper presents an explicit dynamic
model of AdeptOne industrial manipulator. A sys-
tematic derivation procedure based on Euler-Lagrange
formulation is employed for deriving five nonlinear
second order differential equations of motion. This
modeling strategy considerably helps in revealing
greater insight into the physical significance of the indi-
vidual and coupled terms associated with the various
links. Several heuristics based rules together with the
elimination of all zero coefficient terms assist in realiz-
ing simple and computationally efficient individual joint
torque algorithms. In addition, a summary of arm’s
inverse kinematics solution for position, velocity and
acceleration is included which is accomplished by using
a symbolic algebraic matrix manipulation package
MAPLE. Extensive simulation results are presented t o
illustrate the relative significance of inertial (including
inertial coupling), velocity-related (Coriolis and centri-
fugal), and gravity forces which are experienced at the
individual joints while executing a 3-D motion of the
hand wrist in real-time. This kind of analysis allows us
in minimizing the system cycle time, facilitating the
efficient implementation of the multivariable control
algorithms.
1. I n t r o d u c t i o n
The need for accurate and computationally effi-
cient manipulator dynamics has been extensively
emphasized in recent years [1,2,3,4]. From the design
engineers’ stand point, a good dynamical representation
of a robot manipulator assists in examining the dynamic
performance, estimating the desired maximum motor
torques from the view point of mechanical design of
proto type arms, and in simulating the arm motion t o
accomplish a wide variety of trajectory tracking and
path planning tasks. In addition, simulation helps in
investigating and evaluating the comparative signifi-
cance of nonlinear effects, such as Coriolis and centrifu-
gal forces, coupling between the various joints and so
forth. At the same time, t o realize good closed-loop
control performance, control engineer demands an accu-
rate and minimal computing time joint control algo-
rithms. In real-time robot control applications, one can
perform model complexity vs. control analysis tests in
order t o reduce the cycle time without seriously affect-
ing the resulting control performance.
Advances made over last decade in the dynamical
modeling of rigid arms have pretty much solved the
problem of computing the full robot dynamics (both in
real-time and off-line) by two well known methods:
Euler-Lagrange formulation [5,6,7]
0 Newton-Euler approach [1,5]
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CH2555-1/88/0OOO/1688$01.OO 0 1988 IEEE
The latter approach is regarded as computationally effi-
cient, nevertheless, Euler-Lagrange formalism is more
systematic and reveals greater insight into the highly
nonlinear and dynamically coupled characteristics of a
manipulator.
Since early ~ O ’ S ,various studies have concentrated
in describing and customizing the inverse kinematics
and dynamics of industrial robots, e.g. PUMA 560 (3,8],
PUMA 600 [2,9], Stanford arm [lo], Cincinnati Milacron
T3, etc. However, t o author’s knowledge, not even a
single study has attempted t o look at the AdeptOne
dynamics and possible simplifications which can be
readily accessed by the growing number of users of this
robot in the industrial circles. In this paper, the prime
objective is t o present a customized Lagrangian formu-
lation for a five degree-of-freedom (dof) AdeptOne
industrial robot which can be used for efficient imple-
mentation of position and force control algorithms in
real-time. Adept arm is one of the best industrial
robots available which uses direct drive construction
and offers su erb resolution, accuracy and reliability at
high speeds k1,12,13 As illustrated in Fig. 1, it is a
five axis SCARA conkguration with a nearly full circle
work space of radius 31.5 in. and can carry a maximum
payload of 13.2 Ibs. moving it 1 in. up, 12 in. over, 1 in.
down and back t o its starting point in 1.3 secs. A set
of five second order highly coupled nonlinear differen-
tial equations is derived for the purpose of computing
the generalized forces from the precomputed joint posi-
tion, velocity and acceleration profiles in terms of gen-
eralized coordinates. Furthermore, in order t o substan-
tiate the results of simulation by specifying a Cartesian
trajectory in its workspace, inverse kinematics solution
for position, velocity and acceleration is also included.
In the following, we first look at the arm kinemat-
ics in Section 2 followed by a summary of closed-form
inverse solution in Section 3. Section 4 describes the
detailed derivation of the arm dynamics with simplifica-
tions introduced t o make the forward dynamics
efficiently computable. Finally, Sections 5 and 6
present extensive simulation results t o validate the
model and brief concluding remarks, respectively.
2. Arm K i n e m a t i c s
Kinematics of the arm-linkage comes first in the
sequence of deriving a dynamical model of the robot. It
basically involves the determination of the homogeneous
transformations which express the position and orienta-
tion of the end-effector in the inertial coordinate frame.
By using Denavit-Hartenberg convention [14], the 4 X 4
homogeneous transformation matrix A,-l,i(8i)
representing the position and orientation of frame i
relative t o i - 1 is given by
 COi -SOiCq SOiSq aiCOi
sei COicq -CBisq aiS8;
Ai-1,i(Oi) = 0 sq C q d; (1)
0 0 0 1

I x 4 Joints
485

Joint I

Fig. 1. The AdeptOne manipulator

Finally, the overall transformation matrix describing

the position and orientation of the end-effector in the
base frame is given as b'
For brevity, explicit expressions describing matrices
AO1,AI*, AZ3,A,, and A45 are omitted. They can be
obtained by substituting D-H parameters in Eq. (1).
3. Inverse Kinematics
The existence of the closed-form inverse solution of
manipulator kinematics is of considerable importance t o
industrial robots. Almost all the industrial manipula-
tors with five or six degrees-of-freedom designed these
days have closed-form or analytic solutions which are
several times faster than numerical iterative procedures. Base Coordinole
The problem of inverse kinematics concerns finding a
set of analytic equations which transform the tool posi- XO

tion and orientation (defined in Cartesian or task Fig. 2. Position and orientation of the wrist with
oriented space) t o joint space. In a typical application,
most often, the numerical value of matrix Tow is given respect t o base
in the following form:

Euler transformation, Euler (4, 8 4) is expressed as

(3)
Euh (4, 8, $1 = Rot ( z , 4) Rot (Y, 8) Rot ( z , 4) (4)
In Eq. (4), is a rotation about z axis, followed by a
10 0 0 11 rotation 8 about the new y axis, and finally ?I, is the
third rotation about the new z axis. Thus, the alge-
which defines the tool (or wrist) position and orienta- braic relationship between vectors n , o and a and rela-
tion with reference t o the base coordinates. As illus- tions 4, 8 and ?I, become
trated in Fig. 2, the position vector p describes the
Cartesian position and unit approach vector a together COS 8Cos 4 - S i n 4Sin ?I,
with the unit slide vector o define the orientation of +
4Cos 8Cos ?I, Cos +Sin $J
the hand. For simplicity, a unit normal vector is intro- -Sin 8Cos
duced as a "cross product" of vectors o and a , i.e.

I
n = o X a . Thus, a 4 X 4 wrist matrix Tow actually -Cos COS 8Sin ?I, - Sin &'os 4
requires only 9 numerical values, 3 for each of the vec-
tors p , a and 0 . Due t o the anticipated difficulties in
o = -Sin +Cos 8 Sin +
Cos COS 4
assigning elements of vectors a and o conforming t o the sin8Sin $J
two constraints ( a and o must be of unit magnitude
and orthogonal), orientation is usually specified by a
sequence of rotations about z, y and z axes, so called
Euler angles [7]. The final relationship in terms of
COS4 s i n 8

[
a = SindSinO
Cos8 1 (7 1

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 In the following, a closed-form solution of the
inverse kinematics of AdeptOne hand for position,
velocity and acceleration is summarized. This solution
Pas been obtained by the algebraic approach, (using
'Maple", a symbolic algebraic computation package
[15]),in which, the overall homogeneous transformation
= A01A12A23A34A45
is successively premultiplied by A&', A;;, etc., and
then the appropriate elements of LHS and RHS
matrices are compared to obtain meaningful algebraic
expressions. This exercise results in 15 nonlinear equa-
tions, 3 for each joint correspondin t o position, velo-
city and acceleration given below 1167:
(a) Inverse solution for position:
c, = -[?
1 - 1: - 1 4
21 112
s,= * qm
8, = Atan2(S2, C,)
1
r2
Cl = -[I,S,p, + ( / I + 1,C,)P2]
d3 = -p, (28)
where 8,, = e l +6,. Note that additional expressions
for the velocity and acceleration of joints 4 and 5 are
quite complicated and omitted due t o space limitations.
4. Formulation of Manipulator Dynamics
(8)
4.1 Lagrangian Equations of Motion
For an n degree-of-freedom arm-linkage, we can
express the system dynamics in terms of n nonlinear
second order differential equations in n generalized
positional coordinates (gi) and n generalized velocities
(ii). In AdeptOne modeling task, well known Lagran-
gian approach is used, in which, manipulator behavior
can be easily described in terms of work and energy
stored in the arm-linkage.
(9) A general expression describing equations of
motion for the dynamic system is given by
(10)
(11)
(12) where Qiconstitutes the generalized forces and

1 L(gi,fji) = K - P (i=l,...,n) (30)

Sl = - [(b
7,
+ 12C2)Py - 1,S,P2] (13) is referred t o system Lagrangian. After substituting
the kinetic energy ( K ) and potential energy ( P ) by
8, = Atan2(S1, C , ) (14) appropriate matrix equations, we obtain following equa-
tions of motion for an n dof rigid manipulator [IS]:
d3 = d1 - p , - h (15)
where 7,= p," +pi (16) 2 Hij(g)ij + Ia,qi + 5 2C i j k ( 9 ) ; j ; k
j- 1 j-lk-1
(74 = SdC1az + S l a y ) - C,(CPy - S I % ) (17)
+ G i ( g )= Q i , (i=l,...,n ) (31)
s 4 = S2(Sl% - Clay) - C,(C,a2 + S l a y ) (18)
O4 = Atan2(S4, C4) (19)
c 5 = 0, (20)
(33)
5 = C4{CP(C102
s + S l O Y ) + S2(C,Oy- S10z))
The basic reason for representing equations of motion
+ s4{s2(c10z + - c2(c10y - slOz)) (21) in the above form is that we can easily investigate into
85 = Atan2(S5, C 5 ) (22) the physical significance of individual and coupled
terms in Eq. (31). The first and second terms involving
(b) Inverse solution for velocity: the second derivative of q reflect the inertia torques
(both of links and actuators) including the interaction
torques (inertial coupling between the adjacent joints).
The third term has two components; centrifugal and
Coriolis effects whose magnitudes depend upon how
fast links move, and the last term which involves only g
accounts for the gravity torque.
In Eq. (31), HV represents the [i,j]component of
d, = - p , (25) the manipulator inertia tensor H . For an n dof
(c) Inverse solution for acceleration: manipulator, H is of the following form:
1
e, = -
[IS,
+ (iZC12 - iYS12)
[(-P.S1, - fiycl,)~,,
where mi and Ii denote the mass and the 3 X 3 inertia
tensor of the i-th link passing through its mass centre,
respectively. The 3 x n matrices J L ~ and J A ~relate the
Cartesian linear and angular velocities .of he link i t o
f
the generalized velocities 4 = [8,,8,, ...8,] by the fol-
lowing expressions:

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 I w c l = (0 0 ely (42)
wc2 = w , 3 = [o 0 e, + B2]T (43)
wc4 = [o o 8, + e 2 -8,1T (44)
wc5 = [b5s, -d5c, 81 + 8 2 - d4]' (45)
Further, substituting the expressions for linear and
angular velocities into Eq. (34)1 we obtain a symmetric
manipulator inertia tensor:

Hll H12 H13 H14 H15

H21 H22 H23 H24 H25

= H31 H32 H33 H34 H35 (46)
Fig. 3. Position vector representation of the arm structure
H41 H42 H43 H44 H45

w i = JAiG (36) _H51 H52 H53 H54 H55-

in which, Vci and w i are the absolute linear and angu-

lar velocity vectors of the centroid of link i. Also l a i is
the i - t h actuator inertia matrix and g designates the
3 X 1 gravity vector.
4.2 AdeptOne Robot Dynamics
Fig. 1 illustrates the geometry of an open chain
AdeptOne robot having 5 degrees-of-freedom. Joints 1,
2, 4 and 5 are revolute type while joint 3 is an up-and-
down movement of a 12 in. long quill. Its motion can
be described completely in terms of five joint variables
01, 821 d 3 , 0 4 and $5.
As shown in Fig. 3, the position vector of the cen-
tre of mass of link 1 is

pc1 = P1 + ROlP2 = [L-"".1J

c14,

dl
(37)

Similarly, position vectors for link 2, 3, 4 and 5 are

obtained as follows [16]:

(38)

pc3 =
1
-s+1

Cl11
dl
+ S12h
- c12k?
- lc3
(39)

(40)

+
and c, = cos(el e2 - e4), s, = sin(el e2 - e4). +
By differentiating Eqs. (37) t o (41), relations for linear
velocity Vci(i=l t o 5) are obtained. Next, angular velo-
city equations for the centroids of links 1 t o 5 are

16Y I
 H33d3 + G3 = Q3 (53)

5. Simulation Results
Having derived the explicit dynamic equations of
motion in the previous section, a large number of simu-
lation runs (both for loaded and unloaded arm) were
made with two prime objectives:
0 t o verify the inverse kinematics of the manipulator
by specifying a 3-D trajectory for position, velocity
and acceleration of the wrist in the Cartesian coor-
dinate system, and be able t o generate desired
torques and joint variables profiles corresponding
t o the predefined trajectory i

0 t o reveal greater insight into the dynamic equa- Fig.0 4. Torque profiles for motors 1, 2 & 3 (no load)
tions by computing the individual force com-
ponents, and introduce plausible simplifications.
The goal of the trajectory planning in each case is
t o move the manipulator end-point from location
i
(10,10,15 t o (20,20,25) at several maximum speeds
ranging etween 10 t o 30 in./sec, subject t o the con-
straints on the maximum joint velocities and accelera-
tions. The trajectory generation procedure is coded in
FORTRAN 77 which automatically generates the
point-tepoint values of the hand position, velocity and
acceleration for a given set of position, maximum velc-
city and acceleration values [l6].
Figs. 4 and 5 represent the desired open loop 0.0 0.2 0.1 0.6 0.8 1.0 1.2 1.4
torques and joint variables profiles when the unloaded TLme [ s e c ]
manipulator hand follows trajectory # 1 [i.e. move from
(10,10,15) t o (20,20,25) at a V ,, = 10 in./sec, Fig. 5. Joint angles/disp. profiles for joints 1, 2 & 3
A,, = 33.33 in./sec2]. Figs. 6,7 and 8 exhibit the rela- analyze the effect of increasing velocity on the inertial
tive significance of different dynamic terms for the and Coriolis plus centrifugal forces prevalent at the
loaded manipulator (max. payload = 13.2 Ibs) following joints 1 and 2, Cartesian velocities in the x,y and z
trajectory # 1. In case of links 1 and 2, gravitational directions were doubled and tripled. As expected, the
forces are zero because the principal axes of rotation of
joints 1 and 2 are along gravity axis, however inertial velocity related forces did go up with the increasing
+ + velocity but the levels attained were no where close t o
f self coupling) and velocity-related (Coriolis centri-
ugal) forces are non zero. Contrary t o our anticipation,
the role of the Coriolis plus centrifugal component is
the dominant inertial forces. Also by examining Eqs.
(54) and (55), it is inferred that links 4 and 5 possess
considerably lower as compared t o the inertial forces inertial coupling and velocity-related forces with the
pertaining t o the major links 1 and 2. In case of joint links 1,2 and 5 (in case of link 4) and with links 1,2 and
3, since the manipulator wrist has a vertical displace- 4 (in case of link 5).
ment and this motion is completely decoupled from the Above simulations were run on IBM 4341 machine
motions at joints 1,2,4 and 5, therefore, it is gravita- using FORTRAN 77 and each run took roughly 8 ms of
tional force component which dominates the total CPU time. Assumptions such as load is symmetric and
torque scene (Fig. 8). It is also noticed from Figs. 6 and off-diagonal elements of the link inertia matrices are
7 that the ratio of inertial and velocity-related forces is approximately zero are included for simplifying the
roughly same in case of joints 1 and 2. To further dynamic equations. In addition, the inherently sym-

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 0

5 individual joints in a variety of trajectory tracking

tasks.
0

m8 Research is currently underway t o gain better

U
3 -
understanding of the nature of the inertial coupling
b? torques, so that a more efficient and accurate reduced
-0
order model can be accomplished for implementing
simultaneous position and force feedback control in
real-time using advanced control strategies.
Acknowledgement
I would like to thank Prof. M. Vidyasagar for supporting this
project under the auspicious of NSERC and K. H. Low for the
helpful discussions.
References
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2 2z
T 2. Isaguirre, A. and Paul, R.P., "Computation of the Inertial and
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-: Robot Manipulator with a Load", Proc. International Conf. on
2
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1 Robotics and Automation, St. Louis, March 25-28, 1985, pp.
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$9
0 Coriolis + centrifugal 3. Armstrong, B., Khatib, 0. and Burdick, J., "The Explicit
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1.4
Tcme [sec]
Relative significance of the inertial, Coriolis + centri-
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sion of zero valued parameters, all have contributed t o
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6. Conclusions and Future Research
This paper has presented a systematic procedure
t o derive AdeptOne industrial robot dynamics based on
Euler-Lagrange approach. The final form of the five
scalar equations of motion reported here are computa-
tionally efficient and are considerably simplified version
of the full dynamical model. A summary of the closed-
form inverse kinematics solution for position, velocity
and acceleration is also incorporated for transforming
the Cartesian variables into the joint space. Extensive
simulation results verify the model equations and assist
in providing meaningful knowledge about the relevant
significance of inertial (self plus coupling), nonlinear
velocity-related and gravitational forces acting on the
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