ME766 A : ROBOT MOTION PLANNING MID SEM EXAM 2 hrs 25.2.
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Q1. A frame ‘B’ is rotated by 30o about the y-axis of the reference frame ‘A’. It is then rotated by 30o about the
x-axis of the frame ‘A’. If the coordinate of a point ‘P’ in frame ‘A’ is given by Ap= (1,1,1), what is its coordinate
in frame ‘B’?
Q2. A frame ‘B’ is rotated by 60o about the z-axis of reference frame ‘A’ and it is then translated by (2,2,2) units
in the x, y and z directions of frame ‘A’. If the coordinate of a point P in frame ‘A’ is given by Ap=(1,1,1), what
is its coordinate in frame ‘B’?
Q3. Draw the work volume (top and side views) of the human arm that has 3DOF at shoulder and 2 DOF at the
elbow. Do not include the hand and fingers and draw only till the wrist. Assume that the length of the upper arm
(from shoulder to the elbow) is greater than the forearm (from elbow to the wrist). All joints have 360o rotation.
Q4. Briefly describe the following:
(i) Configuration and Configuration space of a mobile robot (give an example).
(ii) Relation between the dimension of configuration space and the DOF of a robotic system. Give an
example.
(iii) Difference between path planning and motion planning (give an example)?
(iv) When is a mapping ϕ:S->T called a Homeomorphism ? What is the importance of homeomorphism in
path planning?
Q5. Consider the environment shown in Figure 1, in which the polygonal regions depict obstacles. A point mobile
robot is at the position Start and must reach position Finish.
(a) Using the visibility graph method find the shortest path between Start and Finish positions (show all the
steps).
(b) Describe a method to make the Visibility Graph method faster (use the same Figure 1 to explain)?
Figure 1: Environment with polygonal obstacles (approximately draw the obstacles)
Q6. A point robot operates in a two-dimensional environment like the one shown in Figure 2:
(a) Draw the paths (in two different figures) generated by Bug-1 and Bug-2 algorithms for the point robot to
reach the goal point from the start.
(b) Which algorithm out of Bug1 and Bug 2 will generate the shortest paths? Explain briefly.
(c) Draw a workspace with obstacles in which Bug 2 will fail to find a path. Can you suggest a modification
to Bug 2 algorithm, such that it can find a path for the same case?
Figure 2: Environment with obstacles.
Q7. Draw the shape of the C- space for a workspace with one rectangular obstacle as shown below. Note that the
robot shape is made up of a semicircle and a triangle as shown and the origin of the axis is at the center of the
robot.
Figure 3 A robot in an environment with one rectangular obstacle.
Q8. The robot shown below has two joints: a prismatic joint and a revolute joint between the first and second
link. The first link always points along the x axis. Its length can vary between 1 (minimal length) and 3 (maximal
length). In Figure 4 this link is extended to length 3. The second link is a thin rotating bar of fixed length 3. Due
to mechanical stops, the angle of the revolute joint shown in the figures varies between – 90 and + 90. There are
two 33 square obstacles in the workspace, whose left edges are at x = 4 and that are separated by a distance of 2
(i.e., each one is at distance 1 from the y axis). In both cases, the prismatic link is fully extended. Approximately
draw the shape of the configuration space of the robot, showing the free space and obstacle space.
Figure 4: Prismatic-Revolute Robot arm and obstacles
Q9. (a) Explain the trapezoidal cell decomposition method for finding a path, using the figure shown below
(explain all the steps).
(b) How many paths are there from start point C1 to goal point C2 ?
Figure 5. Polygonal obstacles in environment.
Q10. (a) Give an example and explain why it would be difficult to implement cell decomposition methods for
path planning in high dimensional work spaces.
(b) What are the sampling strategies used in the sampling based methods to ensure that a path is found even
for difficult workspaces where uniform sampling method could fail.
