No label defined (Q4945479)

A parallel manipulator with six linearly actuated legs which are connected to a platform and a base via ball and socket joints is called Stewart-Gough platform. When the geometry of the twelve anchor points and six leg lengths are given, then the manipulator is a structure. But when the six legs, viewed as six lines in space, belong to a linear complex, then the manipulator is in a singular configuration. It is an infinitesimal movable, a shaky structure. The author investigates all possible geometric configurations of Stewart-Gough platforms with anchor-points in planes which are singular in every configuration. Such manipulators are called architecture singular and the paper gives a complete list of all possible cases. The most interesting case has the following properties: be \(M_i\), and \(m_i\), \(i=1,\ldots, 6\), the centers of the spherical joints in the base and in the platform. Then there is a unique collineation \( \kappa \) which maps the points \(m_i\) to \(M_i\), \(i=1,\ldots, 4\). Let \(m_5'\) and \(m_6'\) be the images of \(m_5\), \(m_6\) in \(\kappa\). Then the manipulator is architecture singular when the following two conditions hold: (1) each of the two sets of points \(M_1,M_2,M_3,M_4,M_5,m_6'\) and \(M_1,M_2,M_3,M_4,M_6,m_5'\) lies on a conic section and (2) \(m_5',m_6',M_5,M_6\) are on a line. For the entire collection see [Zbl 0926.00024].