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 investigates multiple wheeled mobile manipulators coordinating with each other under a collision avoidance situation. In our previous work we derived kinematic and dynamic maniuplability measures for multiple mobile manipulators transporting a common object. Main objective of this paper is to extend the previous approach to a system consisting of two mobile manipulators carrying a co...

In this paper, a systematic methodology for enumeration of the kinematic structures of parallel manipulators is presented. Parallel manipulators are classified into planar, spherical, and spatial mechanisms. The classification is followed by an enumeration of the kinematic structures according to the degrees of freedom and connectivity listing. In particular, a class of parallel manipulators wi...

Small perturbations can affect the kinematic properties of manipulators with non-generic architecture. We study in this paper the perturbations of symmetric planar 3-RPR manipulators. We show in particular that one can obtain any of the three possible stable types of behaviour of 3-RPR manipulators for large values of the lengths of the legs.

Many tasks which manipulators must perform occur in the presence of obstacles. While a variety of algorithms for nonredundant and mildly redundant manipulators exist, little analysis has been performed for a class of robots with the most to offer in the area of obstacle avoidance: hyper-redundant manipulators. The term ‘nyper-redundant” refers to redundant manipulators with a very large, possib...

The Gibbard-Satterthwaite theorem implies the existence of voters, called manipulators, who can change the election outcome in their favour by voting strategically. When a given preference profile admits several such manipulators, voting becomes a game played by these voters, who have to reason strategically about each others’ actions. To complicate the game even further, counter-manipulators m...

Traditional rigid serial manipulators have a natural representation associated with them – namely the angles of all the joints in the robot arm. A complete framework that is built around this representation allows engineers to write down simple kinematic and dynamic equations for the robot. These equations enable robust control of rigid robot arms. In contrast, for flexible manipulators such as...

The freedom of choice in designating a base{body for free{ ying manipulators gives these manipulators a base{invariance symmetry that is not encountered in terrestrial manipulators. This paper analyzes the relationship between this natural symmetry and the dynamical equations for freeying manipulators. The base-invariance symmetry is used to develop a new formulation of the manipulator dynamics...

Cable-based robots build upon mechanisms that not only use rigid links in their structures but also utilize unilateral force elements such as cables to deliver the desired motion. Cables may be either connected to active winches to provide a variable length and hence to actuate the mechanism or may be only to provide a kinematic constraint to eliminate an undesired motion of the endeffector. Ma...

The aim of this paper is to classify one family of 3R serial positioning manipulators. This categorization is based on the number of cusp points of quaternary, binary, generic and non-generic manipulators. It was found three subsets of manipulators with 0, 2 or 4 cusp points and one homotopy class for generic quaternary manipulators. This classification allows us to define the design parameters...