Robot arm kinematics for end effector control

A method for performing interactions within a physical environment using a system including:

• a) a robot base mounted on a boom extending from a vehicle;
• b) a robot base actuator that moves the robot base relative to the environment;
• c) a robot arm mounted to the robot base, the robot arm including an end effector mounted thereon;
• and,
• d) a tracking system that measures a robot base position indicative of a position of the robot base relative to the environment and wherein the method includes in a control system:
• i) acquiring an indication of an end effector destination;
• ii) determining a reference robot base position, wherein the reference robot base position is at least one of:
• a predicted robot base position based on movement of the robot base from a current robot base position, and/or
• a predicted robot base position based on movement of the robot base along a robot base path;
• iii) calculating a robot base path extending from a current robot base position at least in part in accordance with the end effector destination;
• iv) generating robot base control signals based on the robot base path;
• v) applying the robot base control signals to the robot base actuator to cause the boom to move the robot base along the robot base path;
• vi) calculating an end effector path extending to the end effector destination at least in part using the reference robot base position;
• vii) determining the current robot base position using signals from the tracking system;
• viii) calculating robot arm kinematics using the current robot base position and the end effector path;
• ix) generating robot control signals based on the end effector path and the calculated robot arm kinematics;
• x) applying the robot control signals to the robot arm to cause the end effector to be moved along the end effector path towards the destination;
• and,
• xi) repeating steps (vii) to (x) to move the end effector to the end effector destination and thereby account for movement of the boom leading to relative movement between the robot base and the environment during movement of the end effector to the end effector destination.