Kinetica Collision Check

Robot pose + obstacles → collisions, minimum clearance and self-collision between links.

Robot

A library robot, or choose a custom DH table, URDF or Kinetica robot JSON.

DH convention (custom table)

DH table (custom)

One row per joint. Lengths in mm, angles in degrees. For revolute joints θ is the zero offset, for prismatic joints d is.

DH table (custom)
#	Type	a (mm)	α (deg)	d (mm)	θ (deg)	min	max	v max (/s)	a max (/s²)
1
2
3
4
5
6

URDF or robot JSON

Used when Robot is “URDF” or “Kinetica robot JSON”. URDF subset: links with box/cylinder/sphere, revolute/continuous/prismatic/fixed joints.

Tool offset (TCP)

x, y, z (mm), roll, pitch, yaw (deg) in the flange frame, e.g. “0, 0, 150, 0, 0, 0”. Empty = robot default.

Joint values

Degrees / mm. Empty = home pose.

Obstacles

Box: centre x, y, z and size sx, sy, sz. Sphere: centre and r. Capsule: start x, y, z, end x2, y2, z2 (in the size columns) and r. All in mm, world frame.

Obstacles
#	Name	Shape	x	y	z	sx / x2	sy / y2	sz / z2	r
1
2
3

Check self-collision

Safety margin mm

Try an example: 6-axis arm above a table (clear) · Arm reaching into a box (collision) · Folded elbow: self-collision check

How it works

Checks a robot configuration against box, sphere and capsule obstacles and against itself. Robot links are modelled as capsules and boxes; the tool reports every pair closer than the safety margin, the minimum clearance and the closest pair, using exact segment–segment distances and an exact convex search for capsule–box distances.

Robot links are capsules (segment + radius) and oriented boxes attached to the link frames; library robots generate capsules along the kinematic skeleton, URDF boxes/cylinders/spheres are imported (cylinders become capsules with caps ending at the cylinder faces; flat discs become an equal-area square prism).
Capsule–capsule: closest points between two segments minus both radii. Capsule–box: the squared distance from the segment to the box is convex in the segment parameter, so a 64-step golden-section search finds the minimum. Box–box: separating-axis test for overlap, else the minimum of the 24 edge-to-box distances.
Self-collision skips adjacent links, user-listed pairs and pairs that already touch in the robot’s home pose (as in MoveIt’s allowed-collision matrix); the static base link is not checked against the environment.
A pair counts as a contact when its clearance is below the safety margin.

Kinematic simulation for planning and teaching. It is not a certified safety function: verify every program on the real controller with reduced speed and the cell safety system active. Geometry is a simplified envelope of the real robot.

Sources

Real-Time Collision Detection (closest points between segments, OBB tests) (C. Ericson — Morgan Kaufmann 2005)

For scripts and AI agents

JSON API: POST https://kineticacollisioncheck.usefulweb.site/api/v1/calculate (same calculation as this page)
Interface description: OpenAPI 3.1 · AI guide: llms.txt
MCP server (Streamable HTTP): https://kineticacollisioncheck.usefulweb.site/mcp · tool name kinetica_collision_check

Example request

curl -s -X POST https://kineticacollisioncheck.usefulweb.site/api/v1/calculate \
  -H 'content-type: application/json' \
  -d '{"robot":"kx6-1400","joints":"0, 0, 0, 0, 90, 0","obstacles":[{"name":"Table","shape":"box","x":900,"y":0,"z":350,"sx":700,"sy":900,"sz":700}],"margin":10}'

Related tools

Kinetica Trajectory Planner – Waypoints (PTP, LIN, CIRC) + limits → timed joint samples, cycle time and peak velocities.
Kinetica Forward Kinematics – DH table or URDF + joint values → TCP pose, every joint frame, Jacobian and manipulability.