Automated Kinematic Analysis of Closed-Loop Planar Link Mechanisms

Abstract

The systematic kinematic analysis method for planar link mechanisms based on their unique procedures can clearly show the analysis process. The analysis procedure is expressed by a combination of many kinds of conversion functions proposed as the minimum calculation units for analyzing a part of the mechanism. When it is desired to perform this systematic kinematics analysis for a specific linkage mechanism, expert researchers can accomplish the analysis by searching for the procedure by themselves, however, it is difficult for non-expert users to find the procedure. This paper proposes the automatic procedure extraction algorithm for the systematic kinematic analysis of closed-loop planar link mechanisms. By limiting the types of conversion functions to only geometric calculations that are related to the two-link chain, the analysis procedure can be represented by only one type transformation function, and the procedure extraction algorithm can be described as a algorithm searching computable 2-link chain. The configuration of mechanism is described as the “LJ-matrix”, which shows the relationship of connections between links with pairs. The algorithm consists of four sub-processes, namely, “LJ-matrix generator”, “Solver process”, “Add-link process”, and “Over-constraint resolver”. Inputting the sketch of the mechanism into the proposed algorithm, it automatically extracts unique analysis procedure and generate a kinematic analysis program as a MATLAB code based on it. Several mechanisms are analyzed as examples to show the usefulness of the proposed method.