Rotations:

Example 1:
Local rotation, local position. If a local coordinate frame O-xyz has been rotated 60 deg
about the z-axis and a point P in the global coordinate frame O-XY Z is at (4, 3, 2), its
coordinates in the local coordinate frame O-xyz are:
Please note that when I first solved the exercise at class I mistakenly took the local coordinate
as being the global coordinate. Though the exercise says that the local coordinate is the one that
is moving with regards to the global. Thus, the exercise tells you that the local coordinate, which
is assumed to be initially coincident with the Global frame, has been rotated 60º, i.e., we know
G
RL. . However, to calculate where LP is going to be, we need to do the following operation,
L
P=LRGGP. [1]

Therefore, we will need to get LRG. Since rotation matrices are always orthonormal, they must
satisfy the following property
L
RG=(GRL)-1=(GRL)T. [2]

Now, we can easily calculate eq.1 using the property of eq.2 to get LP:

Example 2:
Local rotation, global position. If a local coordinate frame O-xyz has been rotated 60
deg about the z-axis and a point P in the local coordinate frame O-xyz is at (4, 3, 2), its
position in the global coordinate frame O-XY Z is at:
This time we have the opposite situation. We know were LP is and we need to calculate GP. Thus,
the transform
G
P=GRLLP, [3]

gives us the solution. You can reuse the transform from the previous exercise just by applying
eq.2. again:
Example 3:

Successive local rotation, global position. The arm shown in Figure 1 has two actuators.
The first actuator rotates the arm −90 deg about y-axis and then the second actuator
rotates the arm 90 deg about x-axis.

Fig.1. Arm.

If the end point P is at

then its position in the global coordinate frame is at:

Example 4:
Successive local rotation, local position. A local coordinate frame B(O-xyz) that initially
is coincident with a global coordinate frame G(O-XYZ) undergoes a rotation ϕ = 30 deg
about the z-axis, then θ = 30 deg about the x-axis, and then ψ = 30 deg about the y-
axis.

Note: This exercise is somewhat misleading. It does not clearly enough say that the point
P is located using the Global frame. Therefore, this exercise asks to do again a
transformation alike the one used in the first exercise, i.e., one must use eq.1 again.
However, this time the rotation matrix is comprised of 3 successive rotations, Az,ϕ, Ax,θ
and Ay,ψ, respectively.

The local coordinates of a point P located at X = 5, Y = 30, Z = 10 can be found by

[x y z]T = Ay,ψAx,θAz,ϕ [5 30 10]T . The local rotation matrix is

and coordinates of P in the local frame is: