Lung-Wen Tsai

Professor Department of Mechanical Engineering and the Institute for Systems Research lwtsai@isr.umd.edu

Information

Dr. Lung-Wen Tsai received his B.S. degree from the National Taiwan University in 1967, M.S. degree from the State University of New York at Buffalo in 1970, and Ph.D. degree from Stanford University in 1973.

From 1973 to 1978, Dr. Tsai was employed by Hewlett-Packard Company as a Research and Development Engineer, working on the development of instrumentation tape recorders and X-Y plotters. From 1978 to 1986, he worked for the General Motors Corporation as a Senior Research Engineer, Staff Research Engineer, and then Senior Staff Research Engineer, leading projects on the development of innovative engine and transmission mechanisms. Dr. Tsai joined the University of Maryland in 1986 as Associate Professor and was promoted to Full Professor in 1990. At the University of Maryland, he has established a nationally recognized research and education program in mechanisms and machine design, automotive engineering, robot manipulators, and walking machines.

Dr. Tsai is the author of a book titled "Robot Analysis: The Mechanics of Serial and Parallel Manipulators." He is the author and co-author of over one hundred journal and conference proceeding papers, and nine U.S. patents. Dr. Tsai is the recipient of numerous prestigious awards, including the ASME 1984 Mechanisms Committee Best Paper Award, ASME 1985 Melville Medal, General Motors 1986 John Campbell Award, SAE 1988 Arch Colwell Award, AMR 1989 and 1991 Procter & Gamble Awards, and AMR 1993 South-Pointing-Chariot Rotating Trophy.

Dr. Tsai is a registered professional engineer, a Fellow of ASME, and a member of SAE. He served as an Associate Editor for the ASME Journal of Mechanical Design from 1991 to 1993 and as the Chairman of the ASME Mechanisms Conference in 1998. He has been serving as a member of the ASME Mechanisms Committee since 1991, and the Editor of the ASME Journal of Mechanical Design since 1998. Furthermore, he will be serving as the General Chairman of the ASME 2000 DETC conferences.

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Research Interests

Dr. Tsai's research interests include design theory and design methodology, design automation, kinematics and dynamics of mechanisms, automotive engineering, robot manipulators, MEMS and other intelligent servomechanisms.

| Center for Automotive Research | MEMS Laboratory | Intelligent Servosystems Laboratory |

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Selected Recent Publications

Book
Robot Analysis: The Mechanics of Serial and Parallel Manipulators, John Wiley & Sons, New York, N.Y., 1999.
Information | Table of contents

Refereed Papers
1. Tsai, L. W., 1998, "Solving the Inverse Dynamics of Parallel Manipulators by the Principle of Virtual Work," Proc. of ASME 1998 Mechanisms Conference, DETC98/MECH-5865, Atlanta, GA.

2. Tsai, L. W., 1998, "The Jacobian Analysis of A Parallel Manipulator Using Reciprocal Screws," Advances in Robot Kinematics: Analysis and Control, edited by J. Lenarcic and M. Husty, Kluwer Academic Publishers, pp. 327-336.

3. Hsieh, H. I. and Tsai, L. W., 1998, "The Selection of a Most Efficient Clutching Sequence Associated with an Automatic Transmission Mechanism," ASME Journal of Mechanical Design, Vol. 102, No. 4, pp. 514-519.

4. Shieh, W. B., Tsai, L.W., and Azarm, S., 1997, "Design and Optimization of a One-DOF Six-Bar Leg Mechanism for a Walking Machine," Journal of Robotic Systems, Vol. 14, No. 12, pp. 871-880.

5. Stamper, R.E., Tsai, L.W., and Walsh, G.C., 1997, "Optimization of a three DOF translational platform for well-conditioned workspace," IEEE 1997 Int'l. Conf. on Robotics and Automation, Paper No. A1-MF-0025.

6. Tsai, L.W., and Stamper, R., 1996, "A Parallel Manipulator with Only Translational Degrees of Freedom," ASME 1996 Design Eng. Technical Conf., DETC96-MECH-1152, Irvine, CA.

7. Hsieh, H. I. and Tsai, L. W., 1996, "A Methodology for Enumeration of Clutching Sequences Associated with Epicyclic-Type Automatic Transmission Mechanisms," SAE 1996 Transactions, Journal of Passenger Cars, Sec. 6, Vol. 105, pp. 928-936.

8. Chatterjee, G., and Tsai, L.W., 1996, "Computer Aided Sketching of Epicyclic-Type Automatic Transmission Gear Trains," ASME Journal of Mechanical Design, Vol. 118, No. 3., pp. 405-411.

9. Ou, Y.J., and Tsai, L.W., 1996, "Isotropic Design of Tendon-Driven Manipulators," ASME Journal of Mechanical Design, Vol. 118, No. 3., pp. 360-366.

10. Tahmasebi, F., and Tsai, L.W., 1995, "On the Stiffness of a Novel Six-DOF Parallel Mini-manipulator," Journal of Robotic Systems, Vol. 12, No. 12, pp. 845-856.

11. Chatterjee, G., and Tsai, L.W., 1995, "Enumeration of Epicyclic-Type Automatic Transmission Gear Trains," SAE 1994 Trans., Vol. 103, Sec. 6, pp. 1415-1426.

12. Tahmasebi, F. and Tsai, L. W., 1994, "Closed-Form Direct Kinematics Solution of a New Parallel Mini-Manipulator," ASME Transactions, Journal of Mechanical Design, Vol. 116, No. 4, pp. 1141-1147.

Some of Dr. Tsai's publications can be accessed here from the ISR Technical Reports Archive.

This book has evolved from class notes used for a graduate-level course in robot analysis that the author has taught for over a decade at the University of Maryland. It provides both fundamental and advanced topics on the kinematics, statics, and dynamics of robot manipulators. Both serial and parallel manipulators are covered in depth. In addition, it also contains chapters on geared robotic mechanisms and tendon-driven manipulators. An overview of the state of the art in solving systems of nonlinear equations that arise in robot kinematics is given in the appendixes. An extensive reference list is provided at the end of each chapter to provide readers with plenty of resources for more advanced study.

Table of Contents

Preface
Chapter 1. Introduction
Chapter 2. Position Analysis of Serial Manipulators
Chapter 3. Position Analysis of Parallel Manipulators
Chapter 4. Jacobian Analysis of Serial Manipulators
Chapter 5. Jacobian Analysis of Parallel Manipulators
Chapter 6. Statics and Stiffness Analysis
Chapter 7. Wrist Mechanisms
Chapter 8. Tendon-Driven Manipulators
Chapter 9. Dynamics of Serial Manipulators
Chapter 10. Dynamics of Parallel Manipulators
Appendix A. Continuation Method
Appendix B. Sylvester Dialytic Elimination Method
Appendix C. Raghavan and Roth's Solution
Appendix D. List of Symbols
Index