On the Nature of Robot Workspace

This paper demonstrates that workspace analysis is not merely a tool of volumetric analysis. In order to emphasize its broad implications in the configuration synthesis of robot manipulators, we use the term workspace theory. After re viewing some recent research on robot workspaces, it is shown that workspace theory leads to an anthropological observation in biomanipulation, qualitative transformations of holes and voids (central or toroidal), the geometric inversion method for the prediction of the number of solution sets, the existence of solution transition boundaries within the workspace (dex terous or total), and the influence oTjoint variable limits on the workspace and the multiplicity of solution sets.

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