In multibody mechanics, the motion analysis for a platform (the kinematics problem) can be classified into two cases: the forward kinematics problem and the inverse kinematics problem. For the forward kinematics problem, the trajectory of a point on a mechanism (for example, the end effector of a robot arm or the center of a platform support by a parallel link manipulator) is computed as a function of the joint motions. In the inverse kinematics case, the problem is reversed: the goal is to compute the joint motions necessary to achieve a prescribed end effector trajectory.