A novel 5-DOF fully parallel kinematic machine tool

Abstract

A novel 5-DOF (degree of freedom) fully parallel machine tool is presented in this paper. The parallel machine tool uses a compound limb to restrict the rotational degree of freedom of the moving platform, which is an unnecessary degree of freedom in the 5-axis machining process. The kinematics of the compound limb is illuminated especially. The closed-form solution is developed for the inverse kinematics. Due to the difficulty in comprehending the kinematics of the parallel kinematic machine tool, the movement of the moving platform in the fixed frame is also explained.