Principal Investigator Alexander Slocum
Co-investigator Martin Culpepper
Project Website http://pergatory.mit.edu/kinematiccouplings/
Research is currently in progress at the Precision Engineering Research Group (PERG) in kinematic couplings (KC's), under the direction of Professor Alexander Slocum, and the Precision Systems Design and Manufacturing Group (PSDAM), under the direction of Professor Martin Culpepper.
Kinematic couplings are precision-machined mechanical contacts used to precisely locate components with respect to each other. In the measurement and instrumentation fields, kinematic couplings (KCs) have been widely used as a method to create precise and repeatable interfaces on a variety of devices, such as optical lenses and probe mounts. Recently, KCs have been attempted in industrial environments on equipment such as engine motors and industrial robots.
Technical documents have been presented describing the basic KC types, the design process, several case studies, and many tools than can be used to design new interfaces. These documents and tools are intended to further collaboration between academic researchers and industry sponsors on current and future projects.
Additional industrial partners are welcome to join in a collaborative consortium for sharing KC design experiences and project implementation knowledge. We intend for this research to be used as a design portal, with future implementations of interactive kinematic couplings analysis tools.