Anthony Nixon

A Characterization of Generically Rigid Frameworks on Surfaces of Revolution

A foundational theorem of Laman provides a counting characterization of the finite simple graphs whose generic bar-joint frameworks in two dimensions are infinitesimally rigid. Recently a Laman-type characterization was obtained for frameworks in three dimensions whose vertices are constrained to concentric spheres or to concentric cylinders. Noting that the plane and the sphere have 3 independent locally tangential infinitesimal motions while the cylinder has 2, we obtain here a Laman-type theorem for frameworks on algebraic surfaces with a 1-dimensional space of tangential motions. Such surfaces include the torus, helicoids, and surfaces of revolution. The relevant class of graphs are the (2,1)-tight graphs, in contrast to (2,3)-tightness for the plane/sphere and (2,2)-tightness for the cylinder. The proof uses a new characterization of simple (2,1)-tight graphs and an inductive construction requiring generic rigidity preservation for 5 graph moves, including the two Henneberg moves, an edge joining mov...

Stress Matrices and Global Rigidity of Frameworks on Surfaces

In 2005, Bob Connelly showed that a generic framework in

Point-hyperplane frameworks, slider joints, and rigidity preserving transformations

{\mathbb {R}}^d

A constructive characterisation of circuits in the simple (2,1)-sparse matroid

Rd is globally rigid if it has a stress matrix of maximum possible rank, and that this sufficient condition for generic global rigidity is preserved by the 1-extension operation. His results gave a key step in the characterisation of generic global rigidity in the plane. We extend these results to frameworks on surfaces in

(2,1)

{\mathbb {R}}^3

Periodic Rigidity on a Variable Torus Using Inductive Constructions

R3. For a framework on a family of concentric cylinders, cones or ellipsoids, we show that there is a natural surface stress matrix arising from assigning edge and vertex weights to the framework, in equilibrium at each vertex. In the case of cylinders and ellipsoids, we show that having a maximum-rank stress matrix is sufficient to guarantee generic global rigidity on the surface. We then show that this sufficient condition for generic global rigidity is preserved under 1-extension and use this to make progress on the problem of characterising generic global rigidity on the cylinder.