An introduction to the mathematics used to model the articulated movement of mechanisms, machines, robots, and human and animal skeletons. Its concise and readable format emphasizes the similarity of the mathematics for planar, spherical and spatial movement. A modern approach introduces Lie groups and algebras and uses the theory of multivectors and Clifford algebras to clarify the construction of screws and dual quaternions. The pursuit of a unified presentation has led to a format in which planar, spherical, and spatial mechanisms are all studied in each chapter. This is different from the usual organization which studies each class, separately. This new format highlights the similarity of the mathematical results that apply to each class of mechanism. This is of particular value in the study of spatial mechanisms where understanding of what can become complicated mathematical relations can be guided by intuition gained from the study of the planar and spherical cases.
