Identification and classification of the singular configurations of mechanisms

This paper presents a novel method for finding and classifying all the singularities of an arbitrary non-redundant mechanism. The proposed technique is based on the velocity-equation formulation of kinematic singularity and the singularity classification introduced earlier by the authors. Criteria for singularity are derived and used to formulate a method for computing the singularity set and revealing its division into singularity classes. As an example, the comprehensive singularity analysis of a spatial mechanism is presented. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.