Kinematical simulation based on a novel six degree of freedoms computer input device

Virtual reality technology utilizes computer to construct three dimensional dummy environment and users can act with it by the aid of special computer input/output devices. This paper introduces a novel computer input device based on the parallel mechanism technology. This computer input device provides six degree of freedoms (DoF) operation ability, as is more flexible than the conventional two dimensional mouse. All objects among the dummy environment can translate along any directions and rotate around any axis in three dimensional space when operator manipulates the computer input device. Three aspects, including operation principle, control system and application are analyzed. And method about how to establish the whole simulation system based on this six-DoFs computer input device is also given as an application example, which is very useful for the mechanism type synthesis, workspace analysis and kinematic characteristic investigation.