Kinematics, Singularity, and Workspaces of a Planar 4-Bar Tensegrity Mechanism

Compared with conventional mechanisms, tensegrity mechanisms have many attractive characteristics such as light weight, high ratio of strength to weight, and accuracy of modeling. In this paper, the kinematics, singularity, and workspaces of a planar 4-bar tensegrity mechanism have been investigated...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Zhifei Ji, Tuanjie Li, Min Lin
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Hindawi Limited 2014-01-01
Series:Journal of Robotics
Online Access:http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2014/967251
Description
Summary:Compared with conventional mechanisms, tensegrity mechanisms have many attractive characteristics such as light weight, high ratio of strength to weight, and accuracy of modeling. In this paper, the kinematics, singularity, and workspaces of a planar 4-bar tensegrity mechanism have been investigated. Firstly, the analytical solutions to the forward and inverse kinematic problems are found by using an energy based method. Secondly, the definition of a tensegrity mechanism’s Jacobian is introduced. As a consequence, the singularity analysis of the planar 4-bar tensegrity mechanism has been completed. Thirdly, the actuator and output workspaces are mapped. Finally, some attractive characteristics of the mechanism are concluded.
ISSN:1687-9600
1687-9619