This spherical four-bar linkage was designed by Kaustubh Sonawale to guide the wings of the Icon A5 from deployed to stowed positions and back.

This version of Mechanism Generator uses five orientations of a moving body to design a spherical four-bar linkage. As with other versions of Mech Gen the system searches in tolerance zones around the task positions to find a number of useful designs. This is more good work by the team of Alex Arredondo and Kaustubh Sonawale.

This linkage is designed to guide the bobbin thread of a rotating weaver to knit the reinforcement web for hosing. Though only one linkage is shown, there is one linkage for each bobbin. This design was developed by Mark Plecnik with help from Kaustubh Sonawale.

21st Century Kinematics

The NSF Workshop on 21st Century Kinematics at the 2012 ASME IDETC Conference in Chicago, IL on August 11-12, 2012 consisted of a series of presentations and a book of supporting material prepared by the workshop contributors.

The book is now available at amazon.com: 21st Century Kinematics–The 2012 NSF Workshop.

And here are the seven primary presentations given at the workshop.

1. Computer-Aided Invention of Mechanisms and Robots. J. Michael McCarthy, Professor, University of California, Irvine.
2. Mechanism Synthesis for Modeling Human Movement. Vincenzo Parenti-Castelli, Professor, University of Bologna.
3. Algebraic Geometry and Kinematic Synthesis. Manfred Husty, Professor, University of Innsbruck.
4. Kinematic Synthesis of Compliant Mechanisms. Larry Howell, Professor, Brigham Young University.
5. Kinematics and Numerical Algebraic Geometry. Charles Wampler, Technical Fellow, General Motors Research and Development.
6. Kinematic Analysis of Cable Robotic Systems. Vijay Kumar, Professor, University of Pennsylvania.
7. Protein Kinematics. Kazem Kazerounian, Professor, University of Connecticut.

Colleagues joined in with two additional presentations:

• Development of Fast Pick and Place Robots. Jorge Angeles, Professor, McGill University.
• Kinestatic Analysis of Mechanisms with Compliant Elements. Carl Crane, Professor, University of Florida.

Many thanks to the contributors and the attendees for an outstanding workshop.

This shows the wing movement of the Icon A5 as guided by a spherical four-bar linkage. This is a new design by Kaustubh Sonawale which ensures the wing clears the horizontal stabilizers in the rear as it moves from the deployed to folded positions and back again.

This is a robotic gripper designed by Andrea Carli and Kaustubh Sonawale. It uses a six-bar linkage for the primary movement and a slider adjustment to provide a gripping fine movement.

Here is the schedule for the IDETC/NSF Workshop on 21st Century Kinematics:

Workshop Schedule: 21st Century Kinematics

Cover 21st Century Kinematics

The presenters for the 2012 IDETC/NSF Workshop on 21st Century Kinematics, August 11-12, 2012, Chicago, Il, have gathered background information into this book published by Springer. It is a guided compilation of work by the presenters found in their recent papers and books. We are grateful to ASME, IJRR, Robotica and Springer for the permission to reprint these excerpts.