TRIAD SYNTHESIS FOR UP TO FIVE DESIGN POSITIONS WITH APPLICATION TO THE DESIGN OF ARBITRARY PLANAR MECHANISMS.

A new synthesis tool, the triad, is introduced to enable simplified synthesis of very complex planar mechanisms. The triad is a connected string of three vectors representing jointed rigid links of an actual mechanism. The triad is used as a tool to model an original mechanism topology with a set of simpler components. Each triad is then used to generate a set of 'relative precision positions' which, in turn, enables the dimensional synthesis of each triad with well-established motion and path generation techniques for simple four-bar linkages. Two independent derivations of the relative precision positions are provided.