On the Development of the Constraint Motion Theory of Franz REULEAUX— An Overview

Abstract

The paper focuses on the constraint motion theory for mechanisms and machines defined by Franz REULEAUX, the founder and pioneer of the "geometry of motion" or "phoronomy". At his time machines with more than one degree of freedom were not controllable and therefore of minor or no importance in mechanical engineering science. Nevertheless the study of the question under which circumstances a mechanism is constrainedly running led to several degree-of-freedom equations for planar, spherical and spatial mechanisms, robots for example. Till today kinematicians and mechanism designers took a lot of advantages of the pioneering ideas of Franz REULEAUX.