I’ve improved the movement of my robot arm by implementing multi motor movement. This means moving large distances will be more efficient since the arm can take a more direct route. You can see this in the video I created above. You’ll find my code for this routine here:

https://github.com/directorcia/Azure/blob/master/Iot/Arduino%20Uno%20R3/Robot%20Arm/routine2.cpp

This has lead me to go down the rabbit hole of kinematics.

Kinematics is the science of motion without considering forces. For robot arms, it answers questions like:

• Where should each joint move to place the end-effector at a specific position?

• What angle should each servo rotate to reach a target point?

There are two primary types:

• Forward Kinematics – You provide joint angles, and it calculates the end-effector’s position.

• Inverse Kinematics (IK) – You provide a desired end-effector position, and it calculates the joint angles needed to get there.

I’m going to try and implement kinematics for my arm going forward, so stay tuned for updates.