Synthesis of Linkages

Abstract

The problem of linkage synthesis of Applied Kinematics was outlined in Chapter 3. In the present chapter, the problem of exact synthesis is discussed and current methods of synthesis are presented. The three usual problems of synthesis are discussed, namely

• i) funtion generation

• ii) rigid body guidance

• iii) path generation

and exact solutions to the resulting design equations are meant to be obtained, these solutions being exact up to round-off and/or measuring errors. Chapter 6 deals with the problem where no exact solution can be found, in which case the best approximation is sought, in the sense of rendering the minimum quadratic error in the approximation.