Versatile Reconfiguration Approach Applied to Articulated Linkage Structures

Abstract

Advances in materials, design, and control, as well as increasing concerns about the sustainability of the built environment, have provided a background for the development of deployable tensegrity and scissor-like systems, which are often limited between a closed and an open state. In cases where more versatile reconfigurations are aimed at, the systems rely on embedded computation and mechanical actuators. Such mechanisms often lead to energy-inefficient operation and complex kinematic behavior. Toward providing multiple possible target configurations of the structure, as well as flexibility and controllability, the effective crank–slider and effective 4-bar methods have been proposed and applied to planar multibar linkage systems. The underlying kinematics principle refers to the reduction of a multi-DOF system to an externally actuated 1-DOF system in each reconfiguration step of the control sequence while adjusting the system joints from an initial to a target position. The present paper reviews related aspects with regard to the two basic reconfiguration approaches and exemplifies their combined implementation through a case study concerning a closed-chain linkage system with eight bars.