Mechanics And Control Of Robots

Intended as an introduction to robot mechanics for students of mechanical, industrial, electrical, and biomechanical engineering, this graduate text presents a wide range of approaches and topics. It avoids formalism and proofs but nonetheless discusses advanced concepts and contemporary applications. It will thus also be of interest to practicing engineers. The book begins with kinematics, emphasizing an approach based on rigid-body displacements instead of coordinate transformations ; it then turns to inverse kinematic analysis, presenting the widely used Pieper-Roth method and the zero-reference-position method. This is followed by a discussion of workspace characterization and determination. One focus of the discussion is the motion made possible by spherical and related novel geared wrist designs. The text concludes with a brief discussion of dynamics and control. An extensive bibliography provides access to the current literature.