Kinematic Synthesis of Planar, Shape-Changing Rigid-Body Mechanisms

Abstract

This paper presents a kinematic procedure to synthesize planar mechanisms, composed of rigid links and revolute joints, capable of approximating a shape change defined by a set of curves. These “morphing curves”, referred to as design profiles, differ from each other by a combination of rigid-body displacement and shape change. Design profiles are converted to piecewise linear curves, referred to as target profiles, that can be readily manipulated. In the segmentation phase, the geometry of rigid links that approximate the shapes of corresponding segments from each target profile is determined. In the mechanization phase, these rigid links are joined together at their end points with revolute joints to form a single chain. Dyads are then added to reduce the number of degrees of freedom (DOF’s) to any desired value, typically 1. The approach can be applied to any number of design profiles that can be approximated with any number of rigid links, which can then be used to construct a mechanism with any number of DOF’s. Naturally, greater difficulty is encountered for larger numbers of design profiles and/or links and for more dramatic changes in shape. The procedure is demonstrated with examples of single-DOF mechanisms approximating shape changes between two and three design profiles.