Modeling and Analysis of a 6 DOF Robotic Arm Manipulator

The behavior of physical systems in many situations may better be expressed with an analytical model. Robot modeling and analysis essentially involve its kinematics. For robotic manipulators having high Degrees Of Freedom (DOF) with multiple degrees in one or more joints, an analytical solution to the inverse kinematics is probably the most important topic in robot modeling. This paper develops the kinematic models a 6 DOF robotic arm and analyzes its workspace. The proposed model makes it possible to control the manipulator to achieve any reachable position and orientation in an unstructured environment. The forward kinematic model is predicated on Denavit Hartenberg (DH) parametric scheme of robot arm position placement. Given the desired position and orientation of the robot end-effector, the realized inverse kinematics model provides the required corresponding joint angles. The forward kinematic model has been validated using Robotics Toolbox for MATLAB while the inverse kinematic model has been implemented on a real robotic arm. Experimental results demonstrate that using the developed model, the end-effector of robotic arm can point to the desired coordinates within precision of ±0.5cm. The approach presented in this work can also be applicable to solve the kinematics problem of other similar kinds of robot manipulators. 1