Picasso the Drawing Robot: An Application of Inverse Kinematics

With the recent advancement in the field of robotics, Robots have become versatile in size and form and can be programmed to do the most mundane as well as the most sophisticated and specialized tasks. Hence, with the advancement in this ever-demanding field comes the need to have a strong understanding of various concepts of automation and robotics. Inverse and forward kinematics are some of the key techniques in the automation and the working of robots, and a deep under-standing of the same is required for designing effective algorithms for strenuous tasks. Hence, in this manuscript, we have designed and implemented a robotic system that uses algorithms based on the concept of Inverse-Kinematics, travelling salesman/shortest path, etc, for achieving the basic task of drawing. The proposed simulated robot (Picasso) can draw basic shapes like: circles, squares, pentagons, and complex figures like: cat, flower, etc. As a part of our experimentation, we have analyzed the efficiency of our system over various images and the experimental results proved the efficiency of the system over basic shapes, but for complex figures, the proposed system fails to perform efficiently. Further, we discuss the use of the proposed system in extending fields of applications in robotics and automation.