Kinematic analysis and experimental verification of a controllable five-bar parallel kinematic manipulator

This paper investigates a convenient approach for a controllable five-bar parallel kinematic manipulator (PKM) on kinematic analysis and simulation. To begin with, a kinematic analysis modeling of the PKM is established and its workspace is described. Then, kinematic equations of the PKM are solved by the closed vector polygon projection method. In addition, the motion simulation based on SolidWorks/Motion is carried out, which acquires intuitive and typical motion coupler curves of the five-bar PKM, and verifies the correctness of the kinematic analysis formula. At the end, a five-bar PKM experimental setup has been developed to test the numerical analysis, comparing with the simulation results. These results show that the influence factors of the mechanism and control system design should be focused on the complex automatic system.