We propose a formulation capable of measuring the complexity of kinematic chains at the conceptual stage in robot design. First, the complexity of the three basic lower kinematic pairs, the revolute, the prismatic and the cylindrical pairs, is proposed. Then, a formulation of the complexity of kinematic chains is introduced. Next, the complexity of the basic displacement subgroups generated by ...

In this paper we present a novel dimensional synthesis technique for approximate motion synthesis of spherical kinematic chains. The methodology uses an analytic representation of the spherical RR dyad’s workspace that is parameterized by its dimensional synthesis variables. A two loop nonlinear optimization technique is then employed to minimize the distance from the dyad’s workspace to a fini...

In formulating the stability problem for an infinite chain of cars, state space is traditionally taken to be the Hilbert space l2, wherein the displacements of cars from their equilibria, or the velocities from their equilibria, are taken to be square summable. But this obliges the displacements or velocity perturbations of cars that are far down the chain to be vanishingly small and leads to a...

Multiple arm systems, multifingered grippers, and walking vehicles all have two common features. In each case, more than one actively coordinated articulation interacts with a passive object, thus forming one or more closed chains. For example, when two arms grasp an object simultaneously, the arms together with the object and the ground (base) form a closed chain. This induces kinematic and dy...

Previously, general models of the kinematics of multi-fingered manipulation have only treated instantaneous motion (i.e., velocities). However, such models, which ignore the underlying configuration (or state) space, are inherently incapable of capturing certain properties of the fingers-plus-object system important to manipulation. In this paper, we derive a configuration-space description of ...

This paper presents an approach to automatically compute animations for virtual (human or robot) mannequins cooperating to move bulky objects in cluttered environments. The main challenge is to deal with 3D collision avoidance while preserving the believability of the agents behaviors. To accomplish the coordinated task, a geometric and kinematic decoupling of the system is proposed. This decom...