Collision Detection in any Dimension

I’ve developed a method to compute the closest point to the origin on any simplex (triangle, tetrahedron, etc.) of any degree, in any dimension. This unified algorithm also allows just one function to be applied to any type of simplex, as opposed to separate algorithms for different types used by earlier methods. On it’s own […]

My Favorite Free Robotics Resources

I’ve had a few people reach out about what I would recommend for some further reading in robotics, and I’m compiling some of my recommendations here to share. The resources listed here are aimed significantly more at theory than practice; they are more focused on the algorithms to control robots and less designing and building […]

I’m Finally Published

I’m finally published! My paper “Memory Optimization for Convex Hull Support Point Queries” was accepted for presentation at IEEE Systems, Man, and Cybernetics 2025, and the pre-print was recently listed on Arxiv. The paper evaluates several proposed memory optimizations for convex hulls that accelerate support point queries. The proposed methods provide a significant speedup that […]

Infrared Camera Tracking System: Calibration

It’s been a bit since I published my first post on this project, and that’s because calibration took me a lot longer to figure out than I expected. There are several ways to calibrate these kinds of camera systems, but the one that I am most interested is the same on most manufacturers use: waving […]

Infrared Camera Tracking System

This post is the first in a series documenting my work on a low-cost infrared camera tracking system. These systems are usually used with retroreflective markers to perform high-fidelity motion tracking; some of the higher-end systems have precision down to a fraction of a millimeter even when the marker is several meters away from the […]

Collision Avoidance

In a previous notebook we explored the concept of nullspace, and I mentioned that there are lots of different applications for this. One of them is obstacle avoidance, where you can move the robot in the null space to increase the distance between segments and obstacles in the workspace. This is actually based on my […]

Automatic URDF Generation from Denavit-Hartenberg Parameters

I just finished working on a Python script that can automatically generate a URDF file from a set of DH parameters. I wrote this to provide some level of visualization for my research in manipulator structure optimization. You can find the code here. It can be called from the command line or integrated into other […]

Manipulator Singularity Analysis

Singularity is an important concept when it comes to robotic manipulators, but many robotics professors provide students with definitions that don’t tell the whole story. This notebook dives into the concept of singularity, the mathematical background necessary to understand it, and how to apply these concepts to robotics. Check out the static notebook here. Download […]

Jacobian Nullspace Movement

Those with a background in linear algebra may be familiar with the concept of a nullspace. The idea of a vector in the input space that produces a zero vector in the output space is especially interesting as we consider the Jacobian of a robot manipulator. Nullspace movement can be used to perform collision avoidance […]

From DH Parameters to Inverse Kinematics

This post details how to use the DH parameters of a manipulator to perform inverse kinematics. Most robotics software packages have some functionality that performs this, so consider this notebook a look under the hood at what might be running at a lower level. You can also use this code to get the symbolic Jacobian […]