Spinorial method of terminal control of spatial rotations (Q384724)

The author considers a model of the manipulator, which is a kinematic chain of \(N\) links connected by spherical joints. The problem of bringing the terminal point of the last link in a given position is stated. The second section provides an overview of the theory of representations of spatial rotations and the spinor theory. In this section, the author derives formulas for the transformation between Euler angles and the components of the spinor describing the corresponding rotation. The generalized rotations which are used in the next section for solving the inverse kinematics problem are introduced. The third section presents an algorithm for the transition of the free end-point of the manipulator to a required position by moving links. This algorithm uses the minimal number of links. As a result, the coordinates of all chain nodes and Euler angles of all links are determined as functions of time. In the fourth section, the author examines a control problem for one-dimensional motion of a mass point, as well as its solutions for different boundary conditions and a condition for minimum energy control. However, the obtained solutions are expressed in terms of the object trajectory rather than in terms of control actions. In the fifth and last section, an approach is proposed how to reduce the three-dimensional problem of rotation of a single link to a one-dimensional problem by constraining the movement to the shortest path. All results are illustrated by numerical examples. The paper deals with the kinematic model of the manipulator only, but this is reasonable enough, provided that there is a sufficient number of controlling forces for an implementation of any smooth motion of the system.