A new class of foldable mechanisms with a circular rail—FoldRail mechanisms

This article introduces a novel class of 6-DOF foldable parallel mechanisms with a circular rail—FoldRail mechanisms. The circular rail allows the mechanisms to perform an unlimited rotation around the rail axis, and the innovative design of the kinematic chains provides foldability to almost a plan...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Mechanism and machine theory 2023-11, Vol.189, p.105425, Article 105425
Main Authors: Fomin, Alexey, Antonov, Anton, Kiselev, Sergey
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Actuation scheme
Circular rail
Foldable mechanism
Line variety
Mechanism design
Mobility analysis
Parallel mechanism
Reconfigurable spherical motion
Screw theory
Singularity analysis
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Summary:This article introduces a novel class of 6-DOF foldable parallel mechanisms with a circular rail—FoldRail mechanisms. The circular rail allows the mechanisms to perform an unlimited rotation around the rail axis, and the innovative design of the kinematic chains provides foldability to almost a planar configuration. First, the paper presents mechanisms with three to six kinematic chains and provides their mobility analysis using the instantaneous screw theory: this analysis allows determining the chain singularities and several inappropriate actuation schemes. Next, among the variety of different mechanisms with various actuation schemes, two mechanisms with three kinematic chains and identical actuation schemes in each chain are selected and compared. The rest of the article analyzes one of these two mechanisms, shows how its output link can achieve a reconfigurable spherical motion and a screw motion, and determines the singular configurations. •We propose a new class of foldable mechanisms with a circular rail (FoldRail).•The mobility analysis shows possible actuation schemes (drive distribution).•The design of FoldRail mechanisms provides reconfigurability in spherical motion.•The study analyzes singularity cases for the novel 6-DOF FoldRail mechanism.
ISSN:0094-114X
1873-3999
DOI:10.1016/j.mechmachtheory.2023.105425