The Geometric Design of Spherical Mechanical Linkages with Differential Task Specifications: Experimental Set Up and Applications

The thesis focuses on the development of an experimental set up for a recently developed failure recovery technique of spatial robot manipulators. Assuming a general configuration of the spatial robot arm, a task is specified. This task contains constraints on position, velocity and acceleration to be satisfied. These constraints are derived from contact and curvature specifications. The technique synthesizes the serial chain and tests if the task can be satisfied in case of a joint failure. An experimental set up was developed in order to validate the failure recovery technique. It includes a robot arm mounted on a movable platform. The arm and platform are controlled by NI sbRIO board and are programmed in LabVIEW. The experimental results of the failure recovery technique were obtained for the case of Elbow failure in robot manipulators. The thesis considers two applications of the synthesis of spherical five –degree-of-freedom serial chains: Power assist for human therapeutic movement and Synthesis of Parallel Mechanical Linkages. A spherical TS chain has been synthesized for these two applications using the Mathematica software

Kinematics and Robot Design II (KaRD2019) and III (KaRD2020)

This volume collects papers published in two Special Issues “Kinematics and Robot Design II, KaRD2019” (https://www.mdpi.com/journal/robotics/special_issues/KRD2019) and “Kinematics and Robot Design III, KaRD2020” (https://www.mdpi.com/journal/robotics/special_issues/KaRD2020), which are the second and third issues of the KaRD Special Issue series hosted by the open access journal robotics.The KaRD series is an open environment where researchers present their works and discuss all topics focused on the many aspects that involve kinematics in the design of robotic/automatic systems. It aims at being an established reference for researchers in the field as other serial international conferences/publications are. Even though the KaRD series publishes one Special Issue per year, all the received papers are peer-reviewed as soon as they are submitted and, if accepted, they are immediately published in MDPI Robotics. Kinematics is so intimately related to the design of robotic/automatic systems that the admitted topics of the KaRD series practically cover all the subjects normally present in well-established international conferences on “mechanisms and robotics”.KaRD2019 together with KaRD2020 received 22 papers and, after the peer-review process, accepted only 17 papers. The accepted papers cover problems related to theoretical/computational kinematics, to biomedical engineering and to other design/applicative aspects