inverse kinematics

Syllable breakdown

Dictionary meaning

the computational problem of determining the joint parameters — angles and displacements — of a robot manipulator or articulated body that produce a desired position and orientation of the end-effector in three-dimensional space; inverse kinematics is the reverse of forward kinematics and is typically much more complex — for redundant manipulators with more degrees of freedom than required for the task, there are infinitely many joint configurations that achieve the same end-effector pose; for non-redundant systems there may be zero, one, or multiple solutions depending on workspace geometry; numerical methods including the Jacobian pseudoinverse, damped least squares, and iterative gradient descent are used when closed-form analytical solutions are unavailable; inverse kinematics is a fundamental computation in robot motion planning, animation, biomechanical simulation, and surgical robotics

Examples

• The animation system used inverse kinematics to automatically calculate limb joint angles from the positions of the character's hands and feet.
• Inverse kinematics for the surgical robot must be solved in real time with sub-millimetre accuracy to safely navigate around anatomical structures.

Synonyms: IK