Welcome to the ASPE - Kinematic Couplings Resource Site
Kinematic couplings are precision-machined mechanical contacts used to precisely locate components with respect to each other. In the measurement and instrumentation fields, kinematic couplings (KCs) have been widely used as a method to create precise and repeatable interfaces on a variety of devices, such as optical lenses and probe mounts. Recently, KCs have been attempted in industrial environments on equipment such as engine motors and industrial robots.
This website is an information repository pertaining to research in kinematic
couplings (KC's) initially conducted at MIT. Research is currently in progress at the
Precision Engineering Research Group (PERG),
under the direction of
On this website, technical documents are presented describing the basic KC types, the design process, several case studies, and many tools than can be used to design new interfaces. These documents and tools are intended to further collaboration between academic researchers and industry sponsors on current and future projects.
We welcome additional industrial partners joining in a collaborative consortium for sharing KC design experiences and project implementation knowledge. We intend for this website to be used as a design portal, with future implementations of interactive kinematic couplings analysis tools.
Please e-mail Prof. Slocum for more information.