Best Paper Finalists at ARK 2026: Stony Brook Mechanical Engineering Researchers Recognized for Kinematics Research
Stony Brook University Mechanical Engineering Professor Jeffrey Ge, Associate Professor Anurag Purwar, and Huan Liu, PhD, were named Best Paper Finalists at the 20th International Symposium on Advances in Robot Kinematics (ARK 2026) for their paper, “On Kinematic Acquisition of Geometric Constraints Via Null-Space Analysis of Planar Displacement Data.”
The paper introduces a mathematical approach for identifying the geometric rules that govern mechanical motion from observed position and movement data. By analyzing planar motion data, the researchers’ method can uncover the underlying constraints of mechanisms with different degrees of freedom, extending earlier approaches to more complex mechanical systems.
A key goal of the research is to connect established kinematics theory with emerging approaches to artificial intelligence. Professor Ge described this broader vision, saying:
“This paper reformulates the classical theory for mechanism synthesis for the purpose of developing white-box kinematic AI.”
The work was presented at ARK 2026, held June 28–July 2 in Barcelona, Spain. The international symposium featured presentations on kinematic analysis, singularity analysis, parallel and cable-driven mechanisms, flexible systems, and continuum robots.