Screw-system-variation enabled reconfiguration of the bennett plano-spherical hybrid linkage and its evolved parallel mechanism

This paper presents the Bennett plano-spherical hybrid linkage and proposes a novel metamorphic parallel mechanism consisting of this plano-spherical linkage as part of limbs. In light of geometrical modeling of the Bennett plano-spherical linkage, and with the investigation of the motion-screw system, the paper reveals for the first time the reconfigurability property of this plano-spherical linkage and identifies the design parameters that lead to change of constraint equations, and subsequently to variation of the order of the motion-screw system. Arranging this linkage as part of limbs, the paper further investigates the reconfiguration property of the plano-spherical linkage evolved parallel mechanism. The analysis reveals that the platform constraint-screw system varies following both bifurcation and trifurcation with motion branch variation in the 6R linkage integrated limb structure. Consequently, this variation of the platform constraint-screw system leads to reconfiguration of the proposed metamorphic parallel mechanism. The paper presents a way of analyzing reconfigurability of kinematic structures based on the screw-system approach.