The paper presents novel models of reconfigurable parallel mechanisms (RPMs) with a single active degree-of-freedom (1-DOF). contain three to six identical kinematic chains, which provide (for the tripod) zero hexapod) uncontrollable DOFs. Screw theory is applied carry out mobility analysis and proves existence controllable DOFs these mechanisms. Each chain in synthesized consists planar spatia...

1. Preface and Introduction 1.1 Preface† The field of biorobotics has developed and flourished as a multidisciplinary interface between biologists and engineers (Ritzmann et al., 2000; Webb & Consi, 2001; Ayers et al., 2002). Collaborative work in the field initially arose from the recognition that studies of animal locomotion could provide insights in solving complex problems in the design and...

Kinematic models of legged robots are stratified, i.e. the equations of motion differ on different strata. An improved version of the motion planning algorithm proposed in the literature is compared with two alternative solutions via the example of the six-legged (hexapod) robot. The first alternative uses explicit integration of the vector fields while the second one exploits the flatness of a...

BACKGROUND To introduce a novel method of patient positioning for high precision intracranial radiotherapy. METHODS An infrared(IR)-array, reproducibly attached to the patient via a vacuum-mouthpiece(vMP) and connected to the table via a 6 degree-of-freedom(DoF) mechanical arm serves as positioning and fixation system. After IR-based manual prepositioning to rough treatment position and fixat...