Computational Kinematic Design of Robot Manipulators

Eric Lee, Rutgers University

Photo of Eric Lee

This project studies the design of spatial mechanism and robot manipulators. These devices are usually used to transfer force and motions in a prescribed manner. Examples of such devices include high speed assembly machines, prosthetic devices and walking robots. There are many different methodologies in designing these manipulators. In this work, I have studied the design process from the kinematic point of view in which geometric constraints are satisfied to produce high precision manipulators. These geometric constraints are a set of spatial positions and orientations that should be reached by the robot manipulators, and they result in a set of algebraic equations. The methods for solving these equations come from computational commutative algebra and algebraic geometry. They include symbolic methods (e.g., resultants, sparse resultants and Gröbner Basis) and numerical methods (e.g., polynomial continuation). Using these methods, several new computational algorithms suitable for design automation are developed.

Abstract Author(s): Eric Lee