9321936 McCarthy This project refines the design tools and trains industry and academia to use them, and to expand this design technology to include spatial 4C mechanisms. These latter mechanisms retain the simplicity of four links and hinges, with the bearings that slide as well as rotate, and have a complexity of movement similar to general robot manipulators. With these design tools engineers will be able to invent completely new, simple, reliable, and cost- effective systems to guide a prescribed spatial movement. This capability will result in new commercial products and components for manufacturing automation. Spatial mechanisms provide simple elegant solutions to the need for prescribed spatial movement. Unfortunately, the three dimensionality of their construction and movement is difficult for a designer to visualize, and they are rarely employed in industry. Previous research has used visualization tools to design and build the simplest spatial mechanism, the spherical 4R linkage. Open- ended projects have resulted in a wide-range of ideas for new products and new components for automation systems all based on spherical mechanisms.
