Homology of planar telescopic linkages (Q969678)

The authors study the topology of configuration spaces of planar linkages having one leg of variable length. A planar linkage is a mechanism which consists of several bars of fixed length connected by revolving joints forming a closed polygonal chain; the positions of two adjacent vertices are fixed but the other vertices are free to move in the plane. Such telescopic legs are common in modern robotics where they are used for shock absorbtion and serve a variety of other purposes. Using a Morse theoretic technique, the authors compute explicitly, in terms of the metric data, the Betti numbers of configuration spaces of these mechanisms.