ON THE MOBILITY AND MANIPULATABILITY OF GENERAL MULTIPLE LIMB ROBOTS

In this paper, the analysis of the differential kinematics and manipul ability measures of robotic systems comprised of multiple cooperating limbs is considered, The goals of this study can be articulated in fou r points, First, to enumerate the degrees of freedom of the manipulati on system (mobility analysis), Second, to describe analytically all po ssible first-order differential motions of the system at a given confi guration (kinematic analysis), Third, to evaluate in the velocity doma in the functionality of a manipulation system, with respect to the tas k it is required to perform (velocity manipulability analysis), Finall y, to calculate the bounds for the-velocities achievable by the system , given bounds on the capabilities of joint actuators (velocity worksp ace analysis), The assumptions made on the robotic system are quite ge neral, so that many complex devices (e.g., dextrous hands, legged vehi cles, whole-arm manipulators etc.) can be dealt with in a unified and convenient framework.