A distinct matrix representation of the planar kinematic chains and isomorphism recognition

Abstract

Structural synthesis of kinematic chains has been an indispensable area of the mechanism-design problem. The duplication may occur while developing kinematic chains. Therefore, an isomorphic test is required to eliminate duplication. For this purpose, the numbers of methods are proposed during recent years. However, most of the methods are complex and difficult to understand, and fulfil the only primary condition, but not the secondary conditions for isomorphism detection. In the present work, a new method is introduced to detect isomorphism in planar kinematic chains (KCs) fulfilling both primary and secondary conditions. First, KC’s are topologically transformed into skeleton diagrams, and then skeleton matrices [S] and identification strings [IS] are formulated consequently. In order to detect isomorphism, the IS is considered as an invariant string of a KC which in turn, enables the detection of isomorphism between the KCs. The proposed method accurately recognizes isomorphism up to 12 links KCs with no counter examples found in the literature. Three examples with one degree of freedom having 10 links 12 joints, 10 links 13 joints and 12 links three degree of freedom systems are introduced to reveal the reliability and strength of the proposed method.