Geometrical Methods In Robotics

The main aim of this book is to introduce Lie groups and allied algebraic and geometric concepts to a robotics audience. These topics seem to be quite fashionable at the moment, but most of the robotics books that touch on these topics tend to treat Lie groups as little more than a fancy notation. I hope to show the power and elegance of these methods as they apply to problems in robotics. A subsidiary aim of the book is to reintroduce some old ideas by describing them in modem notation, particularly Study's Quadric-a description of the group of rigid motions in three dimensions as an algebraic variety (well, actually an open subset in an algebraic variety)-as well as some of the less well known aspects of Ball's theory of screws. In the first four chapters, a careful exposition of the theory of Lie groups and their Lie algebras is given. Except for the simplest examples, all examples used to illustrate these ideas are taken from robotics. So, unlike most standard texts on Lie groups, emphasis is placed on a group that is not semi-simple-the group of proper Euclidean motions in three dimensions. In particular, the continuous subgroups of this group are found, and the elements of its Lie algebra are identified with the surfaces of the lower Reuleaux pairs. These surfaces were first identified by Reuleaux in the latter half of the 19th century.

This book is a collection of talks presented at the 1998 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation. Broadly, the meeting discussed the application of modern geometrical methods to problems in robotics. There are now a few textbooks in this area and more papers in the literature. The aim of this book is to introduce these ideas, their simplicity and power, to a wider audience. The first three chapters give an introduction to the Lie group and Lie algebras. The focus is on the group of rigid body transformations in space, namely the Lie group which is fundamental to robotics. The following chapters provide an overview of some of the most up-to-date work in the field of geometrical methods in robotics and have been written by some of the leading researchers in the field. The applications addressed cover the design of robot kinematics, the analysis of singularities in robots and mechanisms, and a geometric view of some computational issues. Contents:Groups (J M Selig)Subgroups and Representations (J M Selig)Lie Algebras (J M Selig)Design of New Mechanisms via the Displacement Subgroups (J M Hervé)Kinematics from the Singular Viewpoint (G G Gibson)Singularity Analysis of Serial Robot-Manipulators (A Karger)Variational Problems Associated with Kinematic Chains (R Brockett)Computational Differential Algebra (B Mishra) Readership: Researchers, academics and professionals in robotics. Keywords:Robotics;Geometry;Lie Groups;Lie Algebra;Rigid Body Motions;Mechanisms;Singularities;Harmonic Maps;Differential Algebra

* Provides an elegant introduction to the geometric concepts that are important to applications in robotics * Includes significant state-of-the art material that reflects important advances, connecting robotics back to mathematical fundamentals in group theory and geometry * An invaluable reference that serves a wide audience of grad students and researchers in mechanical engineering, computer science, and applied mathematics

Subsequent chapters develop the structure of Lie groups and how these relate to planar kinematics, line geometry, representation theory, and other topics. Having provided the conceptual framework, the author then demonstrates the power and elegance of these methods to robotics, notably to the statics and dynamics of robots, to the problems of gripping solid objects, to the numbers of postures of robots, and to screw systems.

As an introduction to fundamental geometric concepts and tools needed for solving problems of a geometric nature using a computer, this book fills the gap between standard geometry books, which are primarily theoretical, and applied books on computer graphics, computer vision, or robotics that do not cover the underlying geometric concepts in detail. Gallier offers an introduction to affine, projective, computational, and Euclidean geometry, basics of differential geometry and Lie groups, and explores many of the practical applications of geometry. Some of these include computer vision, efficient communication, error correcting codes, cryptography, motion interpolation, and robot kinematics. This comprehensive text covers most of the geometric background needed for conducting research in computer graphics, geometric modeling, computer vision, and robotics and as such will be of interest to a wide audience including computer scientists, mathematicians, and engineers.

This book describes visual perception and control methods for robotic systems that need to interact with the environment. Multiple view geometry is utilized to extract low-dimensional geometric information from abundant and high-dimensional image information, making it convenient to develop general solutions for robot perception and control tasks. In this book, multiple view geometry is used for geometric modeling and scaled pose estimation. Then Lyapunov methods are applied to design stabilizing control laws in the presence of model uncertainties and multiple constraints.

This book is a collection of talks presented at the 1998 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation. Broadly, the meeting discussed the application of modern geometrical methods to problems in robotics. There are now a few textbooks in this area and more papers in the literature. The aim of this book is to introduce these ideas, their simplicity and power, to a wider audience. The first three chapters give an introduction to the Lie group and Lie algebras. The focus is on the group of rigid body transformations in space, namely the Lie group which is fundamental to robotics. The following chapters provide an overview of some of the most up-to-date work in the field of geometrical methods in robotics and have been written by some of the leading researchers in the field. The applications addressed cover the design of robot kinematics, the analysis of singularities in robots and mechanisms, and a geometric view of some computational issues.

First published in 1987, the seven chapters that comprise this book review contemporary work on the geometric side of robotics. The first chapter defines the fundamental goal of robotics in very broad terms and outlines a research agenda each of whose items constitutes a substantial area for further research. The second chapter presents recently developed techniques that have begun to address the geometric side of this research agenda and the third reviews several applied geometric ideas central to contemporary work on the problem of motion planning. The use of Voronoi diagrams, a theme opened in these chapters, is explored further later in the book. The fourth chapter develops a theme in computational geometry having obvious significance for the simplification of practical robotics problems — the approximation or decomposition of complex geometric objects into simple ones. The final chapters treat two examples of a class of geometric ‘reconstruction’ problem that have immediate application to computer-aided geometric design systems.