Type Synthesis of Self-Aligning Mechanisms Applied to the Leg Rest Section of an Hospital Bed

Abstract

Given an overconstrained seed mechanism, different sets of constraints can be removed, generating different self-aligning mechanisms. This paper presents a method to select a set of self-aligning mechanisms according to project requirements. The proposed method is applied to evaluate and generate self-aligning mechanisms by means of matroid theory while using the leg rest of the Eleganza Smart bed produced by Linet as seed mechanism, achieving a set of 78 feasible self-aligning mechanisms out of several thousands possible mechanisms.