Development of Position-Orientation Decoupled Spatial In-Parallel Actuated Mechanisms with Six Degrees of Freedom

We propose a new structure for spatial in-parallel actuated mechanisms with six degrees of freedom in which the output link’s position and orientation are decoupled. Number synthesis of the position submechanism, a partial mechanism for the position-orientation decoupled mechanism, was conducted, and fifteen mechanisms were clarified. Basic equations for kinematic analysis were derived for four of the obtained mechanisms, and procedures to analyze their forward/inverse displacement were investigated. Their workspaces and swing angles were numerically evaluated based on these equations. Experimental results using an experimental position-orientation decoupled mechanism were presented to support these theoretical results.