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Singularity-theoretic methods in robot kinematics

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 November 2007

P. S. Donelan
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: peter.donelan@vuw.ac.nz
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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.

Keywords

Singularity theoryRobot manipulatorTransversalityLie groupGenericityScrew systems
Type
Article
Information
Robotica , Volume 25 , Issue 6 , November 2007 , pp. 641 - 659
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2007

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