Design and Kinematic Analysis of a 2-DoF Spatial Parallel Mechanism with Flexible Orientation Capability

Mechanisms with flexible orientation capability and compact structure have great application prospects in manufacturing equipment, flight simulator, airborne radar, and similar fields. In this paper, a two-degree-of-freedom (2-DoF) spatial parallel kinematic mechanism with three identical kinematic chains is presented. Due to the strong coupling property, its kinematic mechanism issues in terms of forward and inverse kinematics are fundamental to its practical application and thus have been investigated. Based on the kinematic analysis results, the orientation capability of the presented mechanism can reach 40° for an arbitrary azimuth angle. Benefitting from the parallel kinematic structure and coupling kinematics, the presented mechanism also has potential advantages of high stiffness and quick response.