A computational geometry approach for determination of boundary of workspaces of planar manipulators with arbitrary topology

摘要

The paper presents a fast and reliable method of determination of the external boundary of workspaces of planar manipulators with arbitrary topology In this method, first, enough number (not necessarily very large) of points are generated in theworkspace and then techniques of computational geometry are applied to determine the boundary. The method of determination of boundary of the set of points is based on the modified gift wrapper algorithm available in literature on computationalmorphology. The original algorithm is modified to make it suitable to the domain of workspace analysis, and enhanced by using the knowledge of order in which the points are generated to determine the boundary. The method is fast, accurate, robust andstable, and can be applied to the workspaces 9f any planar manipulator. Using the method of modular kinematics for solving direct kinematics, workspaces generated by different branches of the manipulator are distinctly identified. A number of worked outexamples are included to illustrate the different features of the present method.