| Abstract: | In 13, 14] we have proclaimed a singularity theory based programme of investigations of kinematic singularities in robot manipulators. The main achievement of the programme consists in providing local candidate models of kinematic singularities. However, due to the specific form of the manipulator kinematics, fitting the candidate models into the prescribed robot kinematics is a fairly open problem. The problem is easily solvable only around non-singular configurations of manipulators, where locally the kinematics can be modelled by linear injections or projections. In this paper we are concerned with planar manipulator kinematics, and prove that, under a mild geometric condition, such kinematics can be transformed around singular configurations to simple quadratic models of the Morse type. The models provide a complete local classification of generic planar kinematics of robot manipulators. |
