TY - JOUR
T1 - Designing multi-link robot arms in a convex polygon
AU - Suzuki, Ichiro
AU - Yamashita, Masafumi
PY - 1996/1/1
Y1 - 1996/1/1
N2 - The problem of designing a k-link robot arm confined in a convex polygon that can reach any point in the polygon starting from a fixed initial configuration is considered. The links of an arm are assumed to be all of the same length. We present a necessary condition and a sufficient condition on the shape of the given polygon for the existence of such a k-link arm for various values of k, as well as necessary and sufficient conditions for rectangles, triangles and diamonds to have such an arm. We then study the case k = 2, and show that, for an arbitrary n-sided convex polygon, in O(n2) time we can decide whether there exists a 2-link arm that can reach all inside points, and construct such an arm if it exists. Finally, we prove a lower bound and an upper bound on the number of links needed to construct an arm that can reach every point in a general n-sided convex polygon, and show that the two bounds can differ by at most one. The constructive proof of the upper bound thus provides a simple method for designing a desired arm having at most k+1 links when a minimum of k links are necessary, for any k ≥ 3. The method can be implemented to run in O(n2) time.
AB - The problem of designing a k-link robot arm confined in a convex polygon that can reach any point in the polygon starting from a fixed initial configuration is considered. The links of an arm are assumed to be all of the same length. We present a necessary condition and a sufficient condition on the shape of the given polygon for the existence of such a k-link arm for various values of k, as well as necessary and sufficient conditions for rectangles, triangles and diamonds to have such an arm. We then study the case k = 2, and show that, for an arbitrary n-sided convex polygon, in O(n2) time we can decide whether there exists a 2-link arm that can reach all inside points, and construct such an arm if it exists. Finally, we prove a lower bound and an upper bound on the number of links needed to construct an arm that can reach every point in a general n-sided convex polygon, and show that the two bounds can differ by at most one. The constructive proof of the upper bound thus provides a simple method for designing a desired arm having at most k+1 links when a minimum of k links are necessary, for any k ≥ 3. The method can be implemented to run in O(n2) time.
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U2 - 10.1142/S0218195996000290
DO - 10.1142/S0218195996000290
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:0030353246
VL - 6
SP - 461
EP - 486
JO - International Journal of Computational Geometry and Applications
JF - International Journal of Computational Geometry and Applications
SN - 0218-1959
IS - 4
ER -