A comparative study for computational cost of fundamental robot manipulators

The computational cost of the dynamic equations is very important in real time control applications of industrial robot manipulators. Basically, the computational cost depends on the joint properties, the method used for deriving the dynamic equations and the algorithm efficiency. In this study, the dynamic equations for the sixteen three and six degrees of freedom fundamental robot configurations were derived using Newton-Euler (N-E), Lagrange-Euler (L-E) and Hamiltonian (H) methods in symbolic form. The computational costs of these dynamic equations for both three and six degrees of freedom manipulators are obtained. Some comparisons considering the joint properties, the method and the workspace geometries of the manipulators are performed and some important conclusions are summarized.