Advances in robot kinematics 2022. Proceedings of the 18th symposium, ARK2022, Bilbao, Spain, June 26--30, 2022 (Q6158927)

This book contains the articles presented at the 18th International Symposium on Advances in Robot Kinematics (ARK) held in Bilbao, Spain, in 2022. The volume is co-edited by Oscar Altuzarra and Andrés Kecskeméthy and the series editors of Springer Proceedings in Advanced Robotics (SPAR) are Bruno Siciliano and Oussama Khatib. This bi-annual conference was for the first time held in Ljubljana, Slovenia, in 1988. The first book was published by Springer in 1991 and since 1994 a new issue was published every two years, linked to the symposium. It is the 16th book of this series of Springer. The contributions are grouped in different chapters, which are Theoretical Kinematics, Cable Driven Manipulators, Computational Kinematics, Continuum Mechanisms, Mechanism Synthesis, Biomechanics, Linkages and Motion Planning. This shows the wide range of this field of research. The book is rather impressive with close to 500 pages and it contains 53 papers. ``Theoretical Kinematics'' ranges from single-loop closed linkages, via snapping and shaking mechanisms, ternary products to characterize dexterity, line-point constraints for robot surgery, analysis of serial 3R robots, extended rotation matrices, hyper-multidual algebra with higher-order kinematics to the synthesis of grippers. The chapter ``Cable Driven Manipulators'' collects articles about workspace, stiffness and transparency of collaborative robots, calibration accuracy, the problem of sagging cables, underactuated robots and analysis of tensegrity mechanisms. In ``Computational Kinematics'' one may find inverse and forward kinematics and synthesis of serial, parallel and hybrid manipulators. ``Continuum Mechanisms'' offers mainly articles about analysis and design of compliant and continuum mechanisms, but also simulation and singularity analysis. In the section ``Mechanism Synthesis'' the authors provide insights in path generation synthesis, mechanism synthesis for a discrete number of poses or approximation of a path, synthesis of function generators. ``Spherical Mechanisms'' covers articles about design and analysis of parallel wrists, of gear-based spherical mechanisms and also a spherical tensegrity structure. In the ``Biomechanics'' part it is possible to find solutions to generation of gait patterns, reconstruction of knee kinematics, smooth wrapping of thick strands around convex surfaces and generating robot behaviours for contact tasks out of a collection of haptic demonstrations. ``Linkages'' includes contributions about the generalized Lobster's arm, a balanced spatial pantograph and an overconstrained P5R mechanism, but it also covers papers about inverse kinematics of serial 6R robots and serial chains with two translational degrees of freedom. The last chapter ``Motion Planning'' covers articles about path, trajectory and motion planning for mechanisms used in additive manufacturing processes as well, but also trajectory tracking and locomotion of a walking hexapod on unstructured ground.