Learning Robotics using Python - Second Edition

Introduction to the differential drive system and robot kinematics

Robot kinematics is the study of the mathematics of motion without considering the forces that affect the motion. It mainly deals with the geometric relationships that govern the system. Robot dynamics is the study of motion in robots in which all the forces involved in the robots' movement are modeled.

A mobile robot or vehicle has six degrees of freedom (DOFs) expressed by the pose (x, y, z, roll, pitch, and yaw). These DOFs consist of the position (x, y, z) and attitude (roll, pitch, and yaw). Roll refers to sidewise rotation, pitch refers to forward and backward rotation, and yaw (called the heading or orientation) refers to the direction in which the robot moves in the ...