Direct Kinematic Analysis of the Spatial Parallel Mechanism With 3-R(P)S Structure Based on the Point Pair Relationship

Abstract This paper demonstrates a novel geometric modeling and computational method of the family of spatial parallel mechanisms (PMs) with 3-R(P)S structure for direct kinematic analysis based on the point pair relationship. The point pair relationship, which is derived from the framework of conformal geometric algebra (CGA), consists of the relationship between the point and the point pair and two point pairs. The first research is on the distance relationship between the point and the point pair. Second, the derivation of the distance relationship between two point pairs is based on the aforementioned result, which shows the mathematical homogeneity. Third, two formulations for a point of the point pairs that satisfy the distance relationship between two point pairs are reduced. Fourth, the point pair relationship is applied to solve the direct kinematic analysis of the spatial parallel mechanism with 3-R(P)S structure. Finally, four numerical examples are provided to verify the validity of the proposed algorithm. Overall, the proposed method can be generalized for the direct kinematics of a series of spatial parallel mechanisms with 3-R(P)S structure.