A simple and general method for kinematic synthesis of spatial mechanisms

In this paper a simple and efficient method for optimum kinematic synthesis of multibody systems is presented. The proposed formulation is based on the use of a set of fully Cartesian coordinates. Using the coordinates, the system is described by a set of geometric constraints and the design requirements are introduced by a set of functional constraints. An objective function is defined and minimized to obtain the values for design parameters. Finally, some planar and three-dimensional examples are presented that illustrate the application of the method.