This book presents the singular configurations associated with a robot mechanism together with
robust methods for their computation interpretation and avoidance path planning. Having such
methods is essential as singularities generally pose problems to the normal operation of a
robot but also determine the workspaces and motion impediments of its underlying mechanical
structure. A distinctive feature of this volume is that the methods are applicable to
nonredundant mechanisms of general architecture defined by planar or spatial kinematic chains
interconnected in an arbitrary way. Moreover singularities are interpreted as silhouettes of
the configuration space when seen from the input or output spaces. This leads to a powerful
image that explains the consequences of traversing singular configurations and all the rich
information that can be extracted from them. The problems are solved by means of effective
branch-and-prune and numerical continuation methods that are of independent interest in
themselves. The theory can be put into practice as well: a companion web page gives open access
to implementations of the algorithms and the corresponding input files. Using them the reader
can gain hands-on experience on the topic or analyse new mechanisms beyond those examined in
the text. Overall the book contributes new tools for robot design and constitutes a single
reference source of knowledge that is otherwise dispersed in the literature.
