Project Description

The goal of this project is to build a flexible toolbox for motion analysis and construction of planar manipulators. Planar manipulators are selected to this end
because they allow for a more visual interpretation of the motion capabilities when compared to their spatial counterparts, yet still retaining the variety of complex
kinematic phenomena that may be encountered in practice.
In order to fully illustrate all these phenomena, the project aims at exploiting previous experience gained during the VALTEC and Cuik++ projects, to design and
manufacture a set of basic pieces that can be assembled to form different manipulators of this kind, as well as an associated software platform able to perform a
full analysis of their workspace boundaries, singularities, and to plan singularity-free transitions between given configurations. Therefore, this toolbox can be a
highly useful tool to support both the teaching of Robot Kinematics principles at the University level, and the empirical demonstration of advanced scientific results.
Additionally, the toolbox will be offered to the Scientific Community, thus helping to disseminate the knowledge of the proposing group, as well as to increase its
international visibility.