Abstract
The manipulator kinematics analysis is an area that requires solid mathematical and physical bases on the part of the students, however, for their better understanding it is required that the obtained theoretical results can be contrasted with practical applications.
Simulation tools have proven to be an important tool for teaching in the field of industrial robotics. In this paper, the results obtained during the development of a Virtual Laboratory as a pedagogical tool for learning related topics for a robotics course in undergraduate students based on the Simscape Multibody T library of the Matlab (R) / Simulink (R) program.
The proposed methodology is based primarily on the development of three -dimensional models of manipulators in the SolidWorks (R) program that satisfy certain pedagogical characteristics for the subjects analyzed, and then they are exported to the simulation environment of the Simscape Multibody T library in Simulink (R). The methodology is validated by addressing the topics of the position and orientation of a rigid body, the transformation between reference systems and the obtaining of direct kinematics by applying the Denavit-Hartenberg method.
The topics are dealt with in the traditional way, the teacher provides the student with an explanation of the topic, later, they are exemplified through exercises, ending with an evaluation of this first stage. Subsequently, a reinforcement of previously acquired knowledge is performed by analyzing the topics using the manipulator models in the simulation platform, where the theory is analyzed with tools and finally, a second evaluation is performed.
The study carried out as a final result, reinforces the assumption that the knowledge through the simulation platform was better than without the aid of the platform; in this particular case, students were evaluated through an exercise in which they have to obtain the direct kinematics of a 4-DOF manipulator; about 50% of the total of the students, solved correctly the integrative exercise with the support of the simulation platform compared to the first evaluation in which none of the students reached a correct result.
This allows us to conclude that the methodology developed with the help of the simulation platform is a very useful tool that reinforces the understanding of the fundamental concepts in robotics because it is a feedback mechanism for students to detect the possible deviations made in their theoretical analyzes when they implement and contrast them through the proposed platform.