Kinematic analysis of multi-loop spatial mechanisms: The five-loop case (Q1186685)

This paper on the kinematic analysis of multi-loop spatial mechanics deals in particular with manipulators with five loops and lower pairs. Two approaches are outlined, according to the different backgrounds of the authors: the decomposition method, and a differential approach to the nonlinear equation set, which encompasses the direct and inverse kinematic problems, as well as the synthesis of the robot. The results are then specialized for mechanisms with the end-effector supported by three spatial parallelograms, like the DELTA-4 robot. For this class of mechanisms an interesting property is also demonstrated, which dramatically reduces the need for computation in the kinematic problems.