Periodic Reporting for period 1 - LoopMechColls (Collision-free Design of Rational Single-loop Linkages)
Reporting period: 2023-07-01 to 2025-06-30
The project was focused on collision-free design of rational single-loop linkages. These mechanisms are single purpose devices capable of performing a desired task with only one degree of freedom (only one driven motor is required). The main objective was to develop an algorithm to produce them without any self-intersections that often occur during their motion.
The work consisted of 3 work packages that were focused on mechanism modeling with curved links, collision quantification, design optimization, and prototyping. These tasks were fulfilled as planned. To assure reproducibility, the developed algorithms were published both in journals as research articles, and the implementation as an open source Python package.
The key results were delivered as follows: Straight-line models of linkages can be replaced with the newly developed curved-link models, which are suitable for design optimization. Collisions were continuously quantified based on the location of the collision. Numerical inverse kinematics algorithm was developed for the linkages. An equidistant motion planning algorithm was developed for the linkages. Special type of linkages - snapping structures, were further investigated and a new synthesis algorithm was developed.