Inverse Kinematics Assignment

Group practical, max. two per group. Deadline: Dec. 9, 2012.

The goal of this assignment is to practice inverse kinematics in a simple 2D case. We want the tip of an articulated chain to reach a target point, as illustrated in the following figure.

Figure: Inverse Kinematics of a 3-links chain.

Implement a C or C++ program taking the number of links and the target position as input on the command line. The program displays the chain initially straight, and repeatedly updates and redisplays the chain. Experiment 3 methods:

• Pseudo-inverse
• Jacobian transpose
• Cyclic Coordinate Descent

As a bonus, you may allow the user to move the goal position using the arrow keys.

Use OpenGL for display, and Eigen for matrix computations.

Deliverable

Send me the program source (all in one file please), along with a short report (less than one page) comparing the methods in terms of ease of implementation, computation speed and robustness.