Kinematics of a planar slider-crank linkage in screw form

Abstract

This paper investigates the forward and inverse kinematics in screw coordinates for a planar slider-crank linkage. According to the definition of a screw, both the angular velocity of a rigid body and the linear velocity of a point on it are expressed in screw components. Through numerical integration on the velocity solution, we get the displacement. Through numerical differential interpolation of velocity, we gain the acceleration of any joint. Traditionally, position and angular parameters are usually the only variables for establishing the displacement equations of a mechanism. For a series mechanism, the forward kinematics can be expressed explicitly in the variable of position parameters while the inverse kinematics will have to resort to numerical algorithms because of the multiplicity of solution. For a parallel mechanism, the inverse kinematics can be expressed explicitly in the variable of position parameters of the end effector while the forward kinematics will have to resort to numerical algorithms because of the nonlinearity of system. Therefore this will surely lead to second order numerical differential interpolation for the calculation of accelerations. The most prominent merit of this kinematic algorithm is that we only need the first order numerical differential interpolation for computing the acceleration. To calculate the displacement, we also only need the first order numerical integral of the velocity. This benefit stems from the screw the coordinates of which are velocity components. The example of planar four-bar and five-bar slider-crank linkages validate this algorithm. It is especially suited to developing numerical algorithms for forward and inverse velocity, displacement and acceleration of a linkage.