Kinetic rosette patterns and tessellations

Abstract

The paper investigates the possibility to create kinetic rosette patterns and their tessellations by means of modular linkages which rely on the same type and number of symmetry operations as the reference models. The mechanisms show a hierarchy of movements. It is found that symmetry is an effective unifying concept in the design of both the fixed models and the mechanisms. Furthermore, the resulting rosette linkages and their tessellations have peculiar kinematic characteristics if compared to other modular mechanisms which may be alternatively used to reproduce the same kind of models.