Kinematic configuration analysis of planar mechanisms based on basic kinematic chains

According to the single-link transformation principle, and based on the topological characteristic investigations to planar closed kinematic chains (PCKCs), a general study of the kinematic configuration analysis of planar mechanisms with R-pairs is conducted in this paper. Firstly, two new concepts, contract link distance sequence and basic link group code sequence, are defined, and a novel approach for identification of multi-bar basic kinematic chains (BKCs) within the kinematic chain left from the single-link transformation is proposed. Then, another two concepts, weight code and similarity code, are defined for aid to link similarity judgment and two judgment theorems are proposed as well. As a further step, weight code or similarity code of the transformed single-link will be employed for kinematic configuration analysis situation judgment. Finally, corresponding unified constraint equations are set up and solved with coefficient homotopy method, on the basis of aforementioned analysis results. The study shows that the method is reliable and effective, and it is especially applicable for the kinematic configuration analysis problem of PCKCs with multi-bars and multi-freedoms.