An improved bound for the rigidity of linearly constrained frameworks

Abstract

We consider the problem of characterising the generic rigidity of bar-joint frameworks in $\mathbb{R}^d$ in which each vertex is constrained to lie in a given affine subspace. The special case when $d=2$ was previously solved by I. Streinu and L. Theran in 2010 and the case when each vertex is constrained to lie in an affine subspace of dimension $t$, and $d\geq t(t-1)$ was solved by Cruickshank, Guler and the first two authors in 2019. We extend the latter result by showing that the given characterisation holds whenever $d\geq 2t$.