Development of a PTP Movement of a Industrial Robot via MATLAB by deriving its Kinematics and Integration in an Offline Programming Tool

Abstract

This paper explains the development, testing and implementation of a remote control PTP movement for the KUKA KR C4 controller using MATLAB RoBO-2L toolbox. The toolbox is an implementation of a MATLAB interface for a cross-platform offline programming by utilizing the Ethernet UDP/IP communication protocol. Following an engineering approach to solve the PTP (point to point) movement, the forward kinematics has been implemented using the D-H notation. Besides the inverse kinematics has been derived by means of the kinematic decoupling method. A prototype model for the robot was designed using the mechanical design software Solidworks in order to simulate the actual robot. The model was later then imported into the general-purpose robot simulator V-REP. By this means, the calculation was verified before applying it to the real robot. Furthermore, a GUI has been implemented to simplify dealing with the MATLAB toolbox. This GUI shows the current axis and cartesian position of the robot; in addition, it enables the user to enter the desired cartesian position. The field tests for the application of the PTP movement have shown a great reliability among different kind of arbitrary positions and orientations. The work then was applied on the KUKA KR C4 controller, using a KR 6 R900 sixx as real industrial robot.