A Hybrid Approach to Solving the Position Equations for Planar Mechanisms

Abstract

In this paper, a straightforward approach is developed to solve the nonlinear position equations for a linkage when a closed-form solution to some of the equations can be obtained. This is done with the aid of dependency checking concepts that organizes a system 2n equations and 2n unknowns (variables) into smaller sets of equations. When a set of two equations and two unknowns is obtained, the variables are analyzed using a closed-form (non-iterative) solution approach. Otherwise, an iterative approach such as the Newton-Raphson method is used for the analysis.