Generalized Stewart-Gough platforms and their direct kinematics

In this paper, we introduce the generalized Stewart-Gough platform (GSP) consisting of two rigid bodies connected with six distance and/or angular constraints between six pairs of points, lines, and/or planes in the base and the moving platform, respectively. We prove that there exist 3850 possible forms of GSPs. We give the upper bounds for the number of solutions of the direct kinematics for all the GSPs. We also obtain closed-form solutions and the best upper bounds of real solutions of the direct kinematics for a class of 1120 GSPs.