Forward kinematics is computation of the position and orientation of robot's end effector

Robot end effector

In robotics, an end effector is the device at the end of a robotic arm, designed to interact with the environment. The exact nature of this device depends on the application of the robot....

 as a function of its joint angles. It is widely used in robotics

Robotics

Robotics is the branch of technology that deals with the design, construction, operation, structural disposition, manufacture and application of robots...

, computer games

Computer Games

"Computer Games" is a single by New Zealand group, Mi-Sex released in 1979 in Australia and New Zealand and in 1981 throughout Europe. It was the single that launched the band, and was hugely popular, particularly in Australia and New Zealand...

, and animation

Animation

Animation is the rapid display of a sequence of images of 2-D or 3-D artwork or model positions in order to create an illusion of movement. The effect is an optical illusion of motion due to the phenomenon of persistence of vision, and can be created and demonstrated in several ways...

. The reverse process is known as inverse kinematics

Inverse kinematics

Inverse kinematics is a subdomain of kinematics, which is of particular interest in robotics and computer animation. In contrast to forward kinematics, which calculates the position of a body after a series of motions, inverse kinematics calculates the motions necessary to achieve a desired...

.

For a serial chain of n links, and let be the angle of link i. Given ... , the frame of link n relative to link 0 is:


Where is the transformation matrix from the frame of link to link . In robotics, these are conventionally described by Denavit–Hartenberg parameters.

Simple Introduction

• For a detailed introduction to transformation matrices and forward kinematics, see.