Researching on the structural spectrum synthesis method of the open kinematic chain

Abstract

A novel structural spectrum synthesis method of the open kinematic chain is presented to reveal the varieties and design nature of the mechanism structural layout. Its novelty lies in that it is able to generate the structural spectrum by the matrix mapping. Starting from the kinematic chain and topological diagram, the association matrix between the links and the kinematic pairs is established. Then, the orientation matrix is proposed to represent the relative position relationship between the adjacent links. By defining Boolean operation rules of the orientation matrixes, the overall orientation matrix can be derived to generate the structural spectrums of the mechanism. Finally, this method is successfully applied to design the structural spectrums of the vertical machining center and the cylindrical coordinate robot. In the future, the proposed method can be generalized to the structural design of all machines, and used as the fundamentals for the following detailed and innovative structural design. The work will pave the way for the digital and automated structural design from the kinematic chain to the mechanism structure.