A qualitative approach is introduced to reason the spatial configuration of mechanisms in the conceptual design phase. Using the qualitative vector of fuzzy information, position vector, and qualitative constraint matrix, a reasoning structure for the spatial configuration of the mechanism is presented based on qualitative sign algebra. Assuming that complex mechanisms are composed of combinations of basic components, the reasoning structure is applied to reason about the spatial configuration of a complex mechanism. An analysis of the kinetics of the system is performed by reasoning with the vectors of basic components. An analysis of dynamic performance is presented.
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