Kinematic coupling describes fixtures designed to exactly constrain the part in question, providing precision and certainty of location. A canonical example of a kinematic coupling consists of three radial v-grooves in one part that mate with three hemispheres in another part.

Kinematic couplings have been used for over a century as a method of precisely locating components of a mechanical assembly. The oldest, most common form is the three-ball/three-groove kinematic cou-pling shown schematically in Figure 2.1. The ball/groove coupling matches a planar, triangular arrange-

There are MANY uses for Kinematic Couplings…. The Kinematic Sheet Coupling was created for the PCB industry It provides 10x greater repeatability than traditional 4 pins-in-4-slots method

Kinematic couplings are well known to the precision engineering community as simple devices that provide rigid, repeatable connection between two objects through usually six local contact areas. They serve many applications that require 1) separation and repeatable

Potential applications such as mechanical/electrical couplings for batteries could enable electric vehicles to rapidly exchange battery packs. This paper focuses on the design of kinematic couplings and how they have been used in the past and how they can be used in the future.

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.

Welcome to the MIT - PERG Kinematic Couplings Website. Please e-mail Prof. Slocumfor more information. The following pages are currently available:

The article covered four techniques to optimize the design of a kinematic coupling as well as a brief overview of the tools needed to mathematically model the coupling in order to perform those techniques.

This paper presents a method for allocating tolerances to dimensions in kinematic couplings, which are exact constraint devices used to locate one object with respect to another. The objective is to reduce the manufacturing cost without exceeding limits on the variation of the

Quasi Kinematic Couplings (QKCs) • What is a QKC & why is it important –Attain Sub-Micron Repeatability –Use Less Restrictive Tolerances –Have More Flexibility in Assigning Precision Tolerances • Impact –Better Precision At Lower Cost –Extension of Practical HVM Precision –Eliminate Precision Pinned Joints (0.5 -10 microns)