LinkageDesigner is a Mathematica application package, to prototype and analize linkages and mechanisms. The package is designed for use with Mathematica 5.0, 5.1 or 5.2 version. LinkageDesigner is available for Windows Mac and Linux plattforms

Linkage modelling

In LinkageDesigner, kinematic structures (linkages, mechanisms,...) are represented by graphs, where the links are the vertices and the joints are the edges. This graph is called the kinematic graph of the linkage. To define a linkage in LinkageDesigner, the kinematic pairs have to be enumerated .

Usually the graph based kinematic modelling is become difficult if a linkage with loop (or multiple loops) have to be modelled. In LinkageDesigner this is not a problem, because the package automatically generates the non-redundant loop closing equations. Linkage definitions in parametrized way is also supported. Because of the kinematic graph based modelling, 2D and 3D mechanism treated identically.

Figure 1: The geometric model and the kinematic graph of the "Delta" paralell manipulator.

Linkage analysis

In order to simulate or synthesize linkages one has to store the relevant data of the linkage in a database. The data model of this database should contain all the information required by the processing functions, and also flexible enough to enable the extension. LinkageDesigner introduce a new datatype called LinkageData, that conforms these requirements.

Figure 2. Sample records of the LinkageData object.

Because every information of the linkages- required for the analisys and the simulation- are modularized and stored in the LinkageData object, in LinkageDesigner it is possible to work with multiple mechanism simultenaously. One even can copy and paste and glue mechanisms.

LinkageDesigner can calculate the velocity, angular velocity, acceleration, angular acceleration or even higher order derivatives of any links in closed form. Simula

Linkage rendering

Even if every transformation matrix, constraint equations or any other informations stored in LinkageData is accessible to the user, most often animations or visualizations of the linkages give more information, than the expressions. LinkageDesigner package has an extensive support for visualizing and animating linkages. Linkages can be displayed or animated in Mathematica notebook, in Dynamic Visualizer, can be exported to LiveGraphics3D or a VRM97 world.