Hydraulic rescue spreaders are used by emergency response personnel to extricate occupants from a vehicle crash. A lighter and more portable rescue spreader is required for better usability and to enable utilization in a variety of scenarios. To meet this requirement, topological synthesis, dimensional synthesis, and an optimization were used to develop a solution linkage. The topological synth...

The relationship between form and function can have profound effects on evolutionary dynamics and such effects may differ for simple versus complex systems. In particular, functions produced by multiple structural configurations (many-to-one mapping, MTOM) may dampen constituent trade-offs and promote diversification. Unfortunately, we lack information about the genetic architecture of MTOM fun...

Mantis shrimp (Stomatopoda) generate extremely rapid and forceful predatory strikes through a suite of structural modifications of their raptorial appendages. Here we examine the key morphological and kinematic components of the raptorial strike that amplify the power output of the underlying muscle contractions. Morphological analyses of joint mechanics are integrated with CT scans of minerali...

In this paper, we design planar nR serial chains that provide one degree-of-freedom movement for an end-effector through five arbitrarily specified task positions. These chains are useful for deployment linkages or the fingers of a mechanical hand. The trajectory of the end-effector pivot is controlled by n-1 sets of cables that are joined through a planetary gear system to two input variables....

The paper presents a methodology to enhance the stiffness analysis of parallel manipulators with parallelogram-based linkage. It directly takes into account the influence of the external loading and allows computing both the non-linear “load-deflection” relation and relevant rankdeficient stiffness matrix. An equivalent bar-type pseudo-rigid model is also proposed to describe the parallelogram ...