21st Century Kinematics: Synthesis, Compliance, and Tensegrity

Abstract

As we move into the second decade of the 21st century, we can identify three research trends that we can expect to persist into the future. They are the analysis and synthesis of (i) spatial mechanisms and robotic systems, (ii) compliant linkage systems, and (iii) tensegrity and cable-driven systems. In each case, we find that researchers are formulating and solving polynomial systems of total degrees that dwarf those associated with major kinematics problems of the previous century.