Teaching Rigid Body Dynamics

Over the past few months, we’ve received a lot of questions from our users about rigid body dynamics. We hope this video series will serve as a guide to help you understand how to use MATLAB to implement a Lagrangian dynamics approach for deriving motion equations for rigid body systems.

Contents:

• Part 1: Computational Thinking
• Part 2: Spring-Mass-Damper System Case Study
• Part 3: Two-Degrees-of-Freedom Non-Planar Robotic Manipulator Study
• Part 4: Automation
• Part 5: Four-Degrees-of-Freedom Non-Planar Robotic Manipulator Study
• Part 6: Summary of Computational Thinking Implementation

Part 1: Computational Thinking

This video explores basic concepts of the computational thinking approach and discusses how it can support the teaching of rigid body dynamics.

Part 2: Spring-Mass-Damper System Case Study

In this video, the presenter uses the classic spring-mass-damper system and, through it, demonstrates the workflow of how MATLAB® supports a computational thinking approach.

Part 3: Two-Degrees-of-Freedom Non-Planar Robotic Manipulator Study

Reapplication of the workflow pattern to a larger two-degrees-of-freedom system is the focus of this video

Part 4: Automation

This video outlines the available choices for extending the proposed computational workflow to general multi-degrees-of-freedom systems.

Part 5: Four-Degrees-of-Freedom Non-Planar Robotic Manipulator Study

The final case study is the focus of this video. This case study derives the equations of motion for a four-degrees-of-freedom non-planar robotic manipulator.

Part 6: Summary of Computational Thinking Implementation

This video offers a quick recap of the key features in MATLAB® that support a computational thinking approach when teaching rigid body dynamics.

Featured products

All products mentioned in this user story are developed by MathWorks.

• MATLAB
• Simulink