This paper presents a coordinate-invariant differential geometric analysis of manipulability for closed kinematic chains containing active and passive joints. The formulation treats both redundant and nonredundant mechanisms, as well as over-actuated and exactly actuated ones, in a uniform manner. Dynamic characteristics of the mechanism and manipulated object can also be naturally included by ...

linear state bisection is introduced as a new method to find time-invariant state feedback control laws for a special form of underactuated nonlinear systems. the specialty of the systems considered is that every unactuated state should be coupled with at least two directly actuated states. the basic idea is based on bisecting actuated states and using linear combinations with adjustable parame...

The subject of this paper is a special class of closedchain manipulators. First, we analyze a family of twodegree-of-freedom (dof) five-bar planar linkages. Two Jacobian matrices appear in the kinematic relations between the joint-rate and the Cartesian-velocity vectors, which are called the “inverse kinematics” and the “direct kinematics” matrices. It is shown that the loci of points of the wo...

Omni-directional mobile robots have been popularly employed in several application areas. However, the kinematics for these systems have not been clearly identified, specially for redundantly actuated case which is common in omni-directional mobile robot such as Nomadic model. For such mobile robot systems, exploitation of redundant actuation as well as singularity analysis has not been extensi...

This paper introduces a novel method for Cartesian trajectory and performance optimization control of kinematically-redundant truss-based manipulators (TBMs): The Virtual Serial Manipulator Approach. The approach is to model complex parallel-actuated TBMs as simpler kinematically-equivalent virtual serial manipulators. Standard control methods for kinematicallyredundant serial manipulators can ...

While the existing thermomechanical constitutive models can predict the behavior of SMAactuated systems in most cases, in this study, we have shown that there are certain situations in which these models are not able to predict the behavior of SMAs. To this end, a rotary SMA-actuated robotic arm is modeled using the existing constitutive models. The model is verified against the experimental re...

The term discretely actuated hyperredundant manipulator is applied to a kind of manipulators which consists of serially connected modules. Such modules are composed of discretely actuated joints having finite stable states. Since the previous studies have rarely offered satisfactory results regarding the problem of inverse kinematics of discretely actuated hyper-redundant manipulators, the pres...

This paper introduces a novel method for Cartesian trajectory and performance optimization control of kinematically-redundant trussbased manipulators (TBMs), The Virtual Serial Manipulator Approach. The approach is to model complex in-parallel-actuated TBMs as simpler kinematically-equivalent virtual serial manipulators. Standard control methods for kinematically-redundant serial manipulators c...

Truss structures are widely used for the support of structural loads in applications where minimum mass solutions are required. Their nodes are normally constructed to resist rotation to maximize their stiffness under load. A multi-link node concept has recently been proposed that permits independent rotation of tetrahedral trusses linked by such a joint. High authority shape morphing truss str...

the purpose of this study was to examine the effect of self-control feedback on relative and absolute timing through observational and physical practices. participants (n=90) were randomly assigned to physical and observational practice (self-control, yoked, and instructor kr) groups. they practiced a sequential timing task, which required participants to press four keys (2, 6, 8, and 4) respec...