Location Orientation Manipulator by Konrad Wachsmann, John Bollinger and Xavier Mendoza

1969 one of the first 7 dof kinematics was designed by Konrad Wachsmann and his Team, John Bollinger and Xavier Mendoza. Except of some exhibitions within the seventies, in which this project was described shortly, the Motion Machine or Location Orientation Manipulator remained nearly thoroughly unknown. This article will present one of the very first Manipulators which should be a prototype for architectural assembly assignments and systems and which should lead to further research on an empirical basement. Concerning construction assignments, Konrad Wachsmann and his Team realized the gap of the automated assembly systems as mission critical for the introduction of totally industrialized and automated building systems. This approach is a sign of a highly valuable view of the interdependencies between the production and assembly systems and the building systems and concepts. This kind of holistic approach concerning the technical and technological needs and requirements of the construction, production and assembly systems, is currently well known as Robot Oriented Design (Bock, Thomas, 2010). So, Konrad Wachsmann and his team took some basic developments of the following 40 years in advance, which makes it worth to have a closer look at the project called Location Orientation Manipulator.