Stable release 9.8 / February 2, 2013 License LGPL | ||
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The Robotics Toolbox is MATLAB Toolbox software that supports research and teaching into arm-type and mobile robotics. This is free software but requires the proprietary MATLAB environment in order to execute. A subset of functions have been ported to GNU Octave. The Toolbox forms the basis of the exercises in the textbooks.
Contents
The Toolbox provides functions for manipulating and converting between datatypes such as: vectors;homogeneous transformations; roll-pitch-yaw and Euler angles and unit-quaternions which are necessary to represent 3-dimensional position and orientation. The Toolbox is useful for the study and simulation of:
Use of MATLAB
MATLAB is a commercial software by Math Works Inc., USA. It has large number of mathematical operators and commands that can perform wide range of analysis, e.g. matrix operations. algebraic and differential equation solutions, optimisations, control experiments, etc.
Initialise MATLAB
It is expected that MATLAB is installed in a computer where the user will be performing computations. If an icon is available on the Desktop the user has to double-click on it using the left button of the mouse connected to the computer. Alternatively, the user can left-lick. in sequence, on the button/menus that popup: Start -> All Programs -> Matlab-> MATLAB.
How to Use MATLAB
When MATLAB software starts. the MATLAB screen appears with ">>" prompt. This window is called MATLAB command window. Some basic operations are shown here. For detailed description, one may refer to the books available on MATLAB, e.g. Pratap (2002), and use the Demos and Help menu of the software.