The Role of Instant Centers in Kinematics and Dynamics of Planar Mechanisms: Review of LaMaViP's Contributions

Theoretical kinematics and dynamics is one of the research fields where LaMaViP (Laboratory of Mechatronics and Virtual Prototyping) operates, which is the lab leaded by the author at the University of Ferrara. In the last two decades, this research activity at LaMaViP has produced, among others, many novel results that highlight how instant centers' (ICs) locations condition the kinetostatic and dynamic behaviors of planar mechanisms, and that provide tools suitable for design purposes. This paper reviews/summarizes the tools devised at LaMaViP for PM analysis and synthesis through ICs, and shows that they are a complete set of tools, which make the full description of PMs' kinematics and dynamics possible, and that the new IC features, identified while setting up these tools, are relevant in machine design.