Mechatronic design efforts have been and continue to be heavily investigated in the development of robotic manipulator arms. However, little effort has been devoted to mechatronic redesign of traditional two-dimensional mechanisms which mechanical engineers get exposure to when they study subjects such as kinematics and mechanism design. In this paper a feasibility study for controlling the motion of the popular slider crank mechanism with appropriate sensing and actuation is elaborated. The results indicate that a variety of motion profiles can be derived from the same mechanism without involving any mechanical redesign. Many of the control approaches that have been heavily investigated in the field of robotics are readily applicable to such mechanisms. The synergistic combination of mechanical design, soft computing, sensing, instrumentation, and control is likely to bring about unprecedented versatility and performance levels in the hardware realization of machines based on these mechanisms.
Two-Dimensional Mechanism Design and Implementability by an Indirect Mechanism