To solve the forward kinematics problem.
We had to employ the transformation matrices and we have seen how useful and powerful they are in the
hands of our robotic software developer to solve complex mathematical problems in an easy and intuitive
way.
Not only are transformation matrices useful to solve the kinematics problem, but they are practically
useful everywhere in robotics.
Everything can be represented and schematized with a reference frame and can be defined with a transformation
matrix.
The importance of this tool in Ros2 and in robotics world is clear, which is why there is already a
library available in Ros2 that allows to manipulate and combine reference frames through transformation
matrices.
This library is called TF2.
In any robotics application, you will always find yourself dealing with this library.
In fact, even unconsciously, we have already used this package during this course when defining the
Urdf model with the links and the joints of our manipulator robot.
The robot model can be seen as a tree composed of different reference frame connected to each other,
whose transformation matrices between the various reference frame of the robot are automatically calculated
based on the urdf model of the robot.
In fact, in the urdf model of the robot, each link we defined corresponds to the definition of a new
reference frame, and each joint corresponds to the definition of the rotation and translation of a
certain link with the respect to the previous one.
Therefore, it practically corresponds to the definition of the transformation matrix between two consecutive
links connected to each other.
This translation from the RDF model of the robot where all the links and therefore the reference frame
and all the joints and therefore the transformation matrices are defined is the task of the robot estate
publisher node.
It reads The RDF model of the robot interprets it and publishes the links and the transformation within
a topic called TF.
Subsequently, Aav's.
Subscribe to this same topic in order to display in its graphical interface the reference frames that
make up the robot in the correct position with their correct translation and relative orientation.