Advances in Social Science, Education and Humanities Research, volume 242

2nd International Conference on Vocational Education and Training (ICOVET 2018)

A 2-DoF Robot Arm Simulation for Kinematics

Learning

Arif Widodo 1 Ahsan Muzakki 2 Farid Baskoro 3

Faculty of Engineering – Universitas Graduate Student in Universitas Faculty of Engineering – Universitas
Negeri Surabaya Negeri Surabaya Negeri Surabaya
arifwidodo@unesa.ac.id

Abstract.--Most of the robotics research papers are focused Robot Arm simulation is developed to give students more
on robot competition and only a few papers discuss on robot freedom to determine the robot movement so that the trial
education and robot teaching. This research is focused on and error cycle can be avoided during a lesson.
robot education with the help of simulation to give students Furthermore, the results of the simulation can be applied to
more freedom to determine the robot movement so that the
SCARA robot for practical implementation.
trial and error cycle can be avoided during the lesson. The
simulation is developed for simple 2-DoF robot arm
kinematics and can be used to simulate the movement of Robot Arm Kinematics
SCARA robot. The simulation was tested on industrial Kinematics is a branch of mechanics that describes the
robotics class of 22 students. The student response for subject, motion of objects without reference to the forces that cause
interface and benefits aspects show positive results with the the motion. Kinematics in industrial robot concerned with
summary of all aspect is 80 %, indicating this simulation is the position and orientation of the robot end effector
acceptable. relative to the robot joints angle. There are two kinematics
analyses on robot manipulator, forward kinematics and
Keywords--robot arm, simulation, 2-DoF, kinematics
inverse kinematics. Forward kinematics is the process of
calculating the position and orientation of end effector
based the angle of joints. On the other hand, inverse
I. INTRODUCTION kinematics is the calculation of the angle of joints when
given the end effector position and orientation. The latter
term is more useful in practice since the working space on
The development of robotics technology nowadays is human perception is usually mapped in a Cartesian
growing very rapidly. Especially in the industrial coordinate system.
revolution 4.0 era, the robots will be more utilized than ever However, inverse kinematics requires complex
[1]. Many industries are switching the role of the human mathematical analysis, especially in the higher degree of
with the robot because it can be programmed to do a freedom (DoF). Taking an example of 2-DoF forward
repetitive task without weariness [2]. Consequently, kinematics analysis depicted with a kinematic
robotics becomes a more important subject, especially for trigonometric diagram on figure 1. The equation to
engineering students. calculate the end effector point are given in equation 1
However, in Indonesia, students’ knowledge in robotics through equation 4.
are used mainly for competition with more than 40
universities took a part in Indonesian robot contest [3].
Moreover, 93% of robotics research papers worldwide are
also focused on robot competition [4]. Only a few papers
x1  L1 cos 1 (1)

discuss robot education and robot teaching. Therefore,

there are many open problems that can be explored on how y1  L1 sin 1 (2)
to teach robotics effectively.
x2  x1  L2 cos 1   2 
Learning robot arm, used in the industrial robot, requires
(3)
a comprehensive understanding of kinematics theory [5]. It
includes the forward kinematics and inverse kinematics
y2  y1  L2 sin 1   2 
theory. With many equations, kinematics become a very
challenging subject for an engineering student. The (4)
practical implementation of robot arm also requires the
calculation of each movement. Thus, the utilization of
simulation for calculating and visualizing in kinematics can
be beneficial for students.
This research is focused on robot education with the help
of simulation in Matlab. A 2-Degree-of-Freedom (DoF)

Copyright © 2019, the Authors. Published by Atlantis Press.

This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/). 249
 Advances in Social Science, Education and Humanities Research, volume 242

simulation is shown in figure 2. There are three

subfunctions in the simulation, invkin, forward kinematic
and animation. Those functions are then used in the main
simulation program of SCARA Robot.
The invkin function is used for converting the Cartesian
point data into joint angles data. The joint angles data are
then used for calculating the point of each joint and robot
end effector by using forward kinematic function. Finally,
the points of each joint and robot end effector are used for
visualizing robot arm using animation function.

Figure 1. Kinematic Trigonometric Diagram for 2-DoF

Manipulator START

Furthermore, the inverse kinematics equations to

calculate the angle of joints based on the end effector point
are given in equation 5 through equation 9.
Define L1 and L2 Length

y2
1  tan 1 (5)
x2 Load Cartesian
coordinate data from xls
 L12  L32  L2 2  (6)
 2  cos 1  
 2 L1 L3  data = invkin(coordinate data)
i=1
 L12  L2 2  L32  (7)
 3  cos 1  
 2 L1 L2 
points = forwardkinematic(data(i))
Animation(points)
L3  x2 2  y2 2 Increment i
with , the results are as follows:

1  1   2 (8)
Y
i <= data length
2  3  180o (9)

N
The complexity of the above equations is relatively
lower than 6-DoF robot arm kinematics. In conclusion, the
more degree of freedom a robot has, the more complex the END
kinematics calculation.

Robot Arm Simulation Figure 2. Simulation Flow Chart

In order to program the robot arm manipulator, students
are required to know the angle of joints on every move.
Since calculating inverse kinematics manually is not a The simulation was tested with several challenges
practical approach, a robot arm simulation is developed to including marks points, draws lines, creates 2D objects and
calculate those problems automatically. writes letters. The simulation result for writing letters S is
The purpose of this simulation is to give students more shown in figure 3. The simulation result shows a perfect S
freedom to determine the robot movement so that the trial shape with many points. However, the simulation will slow
and error cycle can be avoided during a lesson. Moreover, down when drawing too many points. Therefore, for
programming a simulation also provides practical animation purpose, the points are reduced by sampling the
experience for students on implementing theoretical points with an interval. The simulation can still produce
equations into a programming language. many points for inverse kinematics to be used in the
A Matlab based simulation was developed to meet the practical SCARA robot arm.
challenge in robot kinematics. The flow chart of the

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 Advances in Social Science, Education and Humanities Research, volume 242

provides clear conclusions that the robot arm simulation

accords with the kinematics subject. It also simplifies
learning kinematics, making the subject easier to
understand. This is because the simulation can visualize
how the robot works so that the information received by
students is not in the form of abstract information [7].
The score for interface-related questions shows that this
simulation is easy to use, interesting and clear. Moreover,
the functions and how the learning media works can be
understood easily. The robot arm motion is the key point in
increasing students’ interest in kinematics. The next point
shows that this learning media has benefits in increasing the
motivation of students and making the class more active.

Table 1. The Questionnaire Result.

Question Answer
No
1 2 3 4 5
The robot arm simulation is in
1 5 11 6
accordance with the subject
Robot arm simulation can
2 5 10 7
simplify kinematics lessons
Figure 3. Simulation Result The subject is easier to be
3 understood using the robot arm 7 11 4
simulation
The robot arm simulation can
II. METHOD 4 1 6 11 4
shorten learning time
The robot arm simulation is
5 7 10 5
easy to use
This research uses a quantitative approach, which is an 6
The robot arm simulation is
4 13 5
inquiry employing operational definitions for generating interesting
numeric data to answer predetermined hypotheses [6]. The The robot arm simulation
7 5 12 5
appearance is easy to follow
type of research used in this study is descriptive research.
The functions and the ways of
This study describes the students' response to kinematics 8 working are clear and easy to 5 11 6
simulation in industrial robotic class. understand
The population of this study is electrical engineering The robot arm simulation
education students in Surabaya state university. From this 9 improves students’ motivation 3 15 4
and interest
population, a group sample of 22 students who have an
The robot arm Simulation
interest in robotics was drawn for pre-experiment. The 10 4 14 4
makes the student more active
students are then taught kinematics theory using The robot arm Simulation is
11 4 12 6
programming simulation for 50 minutes. Then, they are useful for practical application
required to fill a questionnaire about the simulation used for
robotic learning.
A questionnaire was designed with 11 questions
including three aspects which are subjects, interface, and
benefits. Question number one until four are asking about
the subject, question number five until eight are asking
about interface and question nine until eleven are asking
about benefits. The subject-related questions measure the
suitability of the subjects. Then, the interface-related
question measures the ease and the attractiveness of the
simulation. Last, the benefits-related questions measure
how much benefits of the simulation for students’ learning
process. All of those questions are given to the students
Figure 4. The result summary
after they learn using simulation.

III. ANALYSIS AND RESULT The summary result for each aspect presented by figure
4. The bar graph shows that the aspect of subject and
interface was acceptable and the aspect of benefits was very
The questionnaire results are presented in table 1.
acceptable. The numerical data from the table are summed
These results show that the students’ response for robot arm
together using the formula below:
simulation gives a positive result. Moreover, the numerical
data show a normal distribution with an average score of 4
in every question. The score for subject-related questions

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 Advances in Social Science, Education and Humanities Research, volume 242

Result 
 ObtainedPoin 100% (10)
 MaxPoin
From table 1, the total points of the respondents’ answer are
967 while the total maximum point for the questionnaire is
1210. Using the above formula, the result for the
questionnaire is 80%, showing this media is acceptable.

IV. CONCLUSION
A 2-DoF robot arm simulation has been successfully
implemented for kinematics learning. The simulation
provides practical experience for students on implementing
theoretical equations into a programming language. It also
gives students more freedom to determine the robot
movement, so that the trial and error cycle can be avoided
during a lesson.
The students’ response to the simulation shows that the
simulation is easy to use, interesting and beneficial with the
score of 79.09% for the subject, 80% for the interface and
80.91% for the benefits. In conclusion, the quantitative
results show the average score for all aspects is 80%,
indicating the simulation is acceptable.

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