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Singularity-theoretic methods in robot kinematics

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 November 2007

P. S. Donelan*
Affiliation:
School of Mathematics, Statistics and Computer Science, Victoria University of Wellington, PO Box 600, Wellington, New Zealand.
*
*Corresponding author. E-mail: [email protected]

Summary

The significance of singularities in the design and control of robot manipulators is well known, and there is an extensive literature on the determination and analysis of singularities for a wide variety of serial and parallel manipulators—indeed such an analysis is an essential part of manipulator design. Singularity theory provides methodologies for a deeper analysis with the aim of classifying singularities, providing local models and local and global invariants. This paper surveys applications of singularity-theoretic methods in robot kinematics and presents some new results.

Type
Article
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2007

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