Degrees of Freedom
Formal
An engineering concept used in MEMS that describes the directions in which an object can move and generally the number of independent variables in a dynamic system.
Practical
In mechanics, the degree of freedom of a mechanical system is the number of independent parameters that define its configuration. It is the number of parameters that determine the state of a physical system and is important to the analysis of systems of bodies in mechanical engineering, aeronautical engineering, robotics, and structural engineering.
