Transition Linkage Identification

Transition Linkage Identification

The team is developing techniques for identifying mechanisms that, through a simple change to one of its parameters, exhibit striking changes in behavior. A simple parameter change includes something as minor as taking a single dimension in the mechanism and changing it by a few percent. The challenge of this work is that it quickly generates large systems of polynomials that can only be solved numerically. In fact, the plot to the right shows one of the curves described by the systems of polynomials indicative of this research. Early work in this area generated a software design award for Murray and Herb Stumph, his graduate student at the time. This work now continues with Dr. Charles Wampler, a Technical Fellow at the General Motors Research and Development Center, and an expert on manipulating and solving systems of algebraic polynomials.