BYU Zoom LectureMDA Press

Quaternions in Kinematics: BYU Lecture

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Students at BYU formed a study group advised by Prof. Denise Halverson to explore Kinematic Synthesis. They invited me to join them to discuss Quaterions and how they are used in Kinematics.

I have not talked about this material in some time, so it was interesting pulling together the theory from many past talks, but I soon became afraid that I was assembling a short course, not a lecture. So I took a different approach.

Here is a video of the lecture. The notes that I prepared are posted below.

My Quaternions in Kinematics presentation is posted here.

MDA Press

21st Century Kinematics: NSF Workshop

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I am pleased to provide the presentations from the 2012 National Science Foundation Workshop on 21st Century Kinematics. These presentations provide insight to the challenges and opportunities for research in mechanical systems and robotics.

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

And here are the 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.
  8. Development of Fast Pick and Place Robots. Jorge Angeles, Professor, McGill University.
  9. Kinestatic Analysis of Mechanisms with Compliant Elements. Carl Crane, Professor, University of Florida.

It seems time to consider another similar workshop for 2022.

Type synthesis

Type Synthesis, Assur Groups, and Rigidity

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These lecture notes introduce students to research on classifying linkage systems which involves a variety of ideas such as Assur groups, Baranov trusses, and Rigidity theory.  Organizing the increasing complexity of machine systems to guide inventors has attracted researchers for literally generations and has generally been called “Type synthesis.”  The goal is to provide a systematic way to explore the types of linkage systems that are available to address a design need.

Mechanisms and Robotics Conference

2016 Mechanisms and Robotics Conference

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Mechanisms and Robotics Conference

Symposia organized for the 2016 Mechanisms and Robotics Conference

The 2016 Mechanisms and Robotics conference is part of International Design Engineering Technical Conferences organized by ASME International in Charlotte, North Caroline, August 22-24.

Plenary speaker Bernard Roth is the Academic Director of Stanford University’s d.school and the author of the Achievement Habit.

For some reason, ASME has broken these links to the 2016 IDETC conference, but you can find out more about each of the symposia at the conference overview link: 2016 ASME Mechanism and Robotics Conference Overview.  Then select the Expand all Symposia Link to see the sessions and a list of papers.

 

Micro-Linkages for a Compliant Material

Micro-Linkages for a Compliant Material

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Lucas Shaw and Prof. Jonathan Hopkins show the micro-architecture of an actively compliant material. Micro-actuators within the unit cells of an assembly are coordinated to reshape the assembly as desired. This was presented as part of the 2015 ASME Design Engineering Technical Conferences in Boston, MA, August 2-5. The video below shows what this assembly can do.

Virgo 2 SUTD

Rolling Robot at SUTD

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Virgo 2 SUTD
Virgo 2 SUTD


A research team including Profs. GimSong Soh, Kristin Wood and Kevin Otto at Robotics Innovation Lab at the Singapore University of Technology and Design has developed a rolling robot about the size of a baseball. The design and motion planning of this robot, Virgo 2.0, was presented at the Mechanisms and Robotics Conference which was part of the 2015 ASME Design Engineering Technical Conferences, August 2-5, in Boston, MA. A demonstration of the Virgo 2.0 moving through a figure eight path around obstacles is shown in the video below.

Tensegrity Robotics at UC Berkeley

Tensegrity Robotics at UC Berkeley

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Students in Professor Alice Agogino’s Berkeley Emergent Space Technologies Laboratory, the BEST Lab, working on motion planning for their tensegrity robot.

MechGen on iPhone

MechGen FG is on the iPhone

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MechGen on iPhone

MechGen on iPhone

MechGen FG is now on the iPhone, thanks to the excellent work by Jeff Glabe and Kaustubh Sonawale.

Kinematics Summer School

Kinematics Summer School

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Profs. Carl Nelson and Anurag Purwar organized a Summer School on Kinematic Theory at the University at Buffalo, New York as part of the 2014 ASME Design Engineering Technical Conferences. Please select this link to get access to all of the talks: Kinematics Summer School.

Select this link for a YouTube playlist of the videos of each presentation.  

My lecture on the synthesis of six-bar and eight-bar linkages is the third item on the playlist.

You can access a pdf of my talk at the link: Synthesis of Planar Six-bar and Eight-bar Linkages.

Among these is a nice presentation by Anurag Purwar on Quaternions and Clifford Algebras.

21st Century Kinematics

Workshop on 21st Century Kinematics

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21st Century Kinematics

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:

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

Update: The presentation links have been fixed.