Editing Arm solution (section)

{{short description|Calculations needed to move a robot arm to a given position and orientation}}

In the engineering field of [[robotics]], an '''arm solution''' is a set of calculations that allow the real-time computation of the [[Robot control|control]] commands needed to place the end of a [[robotic arm]] at a desired position and orientation in space.

A typical [[industrial robot]] is built with fixed length segments that are connected either at [[Mechanical joint|joints]] whose angles can be controlled, or along [[Linear actuator|linear slides]] whose length can be controlled. If each angle and slide distance is known, the position and orientation of the end of the robot arm relative to its base can be computed efficiently with simple [[trigonometry]]. 

Going the other way &mdash; calculating the angles and slides needed to achieve a desired position and orientation &mdash; is much harder. The mathematical procedure for doing this is called an '''arm solution'''. For some robot designs, such as the [[Stanford arm]], [[Vicarm Inc.|Vicarm]] [[SCARA robot]] or [[cartesian coordinate robot]]s, this can be done in [[Closed-form expression|closed form]]. Other robot designs require an [[iterative method|iterative]] solution, which requires more computer resources.