Robot arm‐wrist coordination. Part 1. Quantitative rating

The robotic capability for controlled motion depends upon the robot's ability to coordinate its arm and wrist in order to accomplish the desired task. The objective of this article is to define formally the arm‐wrist coordination and to introduce a quantitative measure for it. We develop a mathematical framework that provides for the analysis of the impact of both the fixed manipulator geometry and the changing robot configuration upon the efficiency of arm‐wrist coordination. In the companion paper (Part 2). manipulator design guidelines are then formulated to guarantee task decomposition for any desired robot task. Numerical simulations demonstrate the efficacy of these design guidelines.