tir38

Last week, Dr. Steven M. LaValle, a Professor of Computer Science at The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, presented as part of Georgia Tech’s Robotics and Intelligent Machines (RIM) Seminar Series. This was the second is a series of eight seminars spanning the Fall 2006 semester and I had the pleasure of attending and hear him speak.

Dr. LaValle structured his lecture around his new book, Planning Algorithms, which is available for free download here. He describes the book by saying:

This book presents a unified treatment of many different kinds of planning algorithms. The subject lies at the crossroads between robotics, control theory, artificial intelligence, algorithms, and computer graphics. The particular subjects covered include motion planning, discrete planning, planning under uncertainty, sensor-based planning, visibility, decision-theoretic planning, game theory, information spaces, reinforcement learning, nonlinear systems, trajectory planning, nonholonomic planning, and kinodynamic planning.

While he was there to present his entire book, he chose to focus on three areas of overlap between mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, and computer science which present “great potential for impact”: motion planning with differential constraints, feedback motion planning, and information spaces.
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I created a Solidworks model of the Peaucellier-Lipkin linkage to better visualize the kinematics of the linkage and to document my Solidworks CAD capabilities. I modeled several parts: pins, links, and brackets. The brackets have zero degrees of freedom to simulate being secured to the ground. The links are of lengths 50, 75, and 150mm from axis to axis.

I also generated a .gif animation to show the pure translation of the end joint (shown as the red pin). I have posted here all of the CAD files.

(7-Zip of complete SolidWorks parts and assembly)