Principles of Robotics — Summer 2025

What is the importance of feedback sensors in a robot's control system?

What is the role of simulation and modeling in robot programming?

What was the significance of the industrial revolution in the development o f automation?

Define the concept of degrees of freedom (DOF) in robotics.

Define homogeneous transformation matrices in the context of robotics.

Describe the process of calculating the end-effector position and orientation using direct kinematics.

What does SCARA stand for, and how do SCARA robots differ from other robotic configurations? Provide an example of an industry or application where SCARA robots are commonly used.

Differentiate between prismatic and rotary joints in terms of their motion.

Explain the difference between forward kinematics and inverse kinematics in robotics.

Describe the importance of static analysis in robot design and control. Also explain the role of load distribution in static analysis.

Define linear velocity and angular velocity in the context of robotics.

How is the Jacobian matrix used to relate joint velocities to end-effector velocities?

What is meant by force and moment balance in the context of robot manipulation? How a robot maintains force and moment balance during a task.

What is the joint space of a robot, and why is it essential for robot control?

How can cubic polynomials be used to create smooth robot trajectories?

What difficulties arise when creating a path for complex robotic systems with multiple degrees of freedom?

Describe the characteristics of a straight line path for a robot's end-effector.

What is orientation planning and how is it used in path planning?

What are the benefits and drawbacks of the Cartesian space technique and how is it applied to path planning?

Define Lagrangian mechanics and its role in robotics.

How does a PID controller work to maintain a desired setpoint in robotic systems?

Give a brief explanation of the difficulties in creating control systems for manipulators that have multiple degrees of freedom in robotics.1

What is the advantage of using the Lagrange-Euler formulation over other dynamic modeling methods?

What are the advantages of linear control over nonlinear control in certain applications?

What are the limitations of feedback control systems and how are they used in robotics?