Compactification of the group of rigid motions and applications to robotics (Q1996077)

An important concept in theoretical mechanism science is the study of a mechanism's kinematic behaviour at the boundary of a suitable compactification of its configuration space. Statements about kinematics ``at infinity'' are often simpler than their finite counterparts and yet have strong implications on a mechanism's finite properties. This recovery of ``partial information [\ldots] via degeneration'' is known from other mathematical fields such as geometric topology or global analysis but made it into mechanism science only during the past decade. This article studies the direct kinematics of three types of \(3\)-legged parallel manipulators (3-RPS, SNU 3-UPU, and Tsai 3-UPU) when the lenghts of the three driving legs tend to infinity. In order to make meaningful statements, it is necessary to preserve information on the platform orientation and on the combined limiting process of the three legs. This is ensured by careful constructions of compactifications of the manipulators' configuration space \(\mathbb{R}^3\) and of \(\operatorname{SE}(3)\). The latter compactification is obtained by blowing up the Study quadric model of \(\operatorname{SE}(3)\) along its exceptional generator. It is isomorphic to \(\mathbb{P}(\mathbb{R})^3 \times \mathbb{P}(\mathbb{R})^3\) and seems to be new. It is demonstrated that the direct kinematics for large leg lengths can be considered as a perturbation of the direct kinematics at infinity which, indeed, is very simple. The article exemplifies a promising modern concept of theoretical mechanism science in unprecedented clear and readable manner. It may well serve as a first reading for interested researchers with some basic knowledge on computational algebraic geometry.