Kinematics and Performance Analysis of a Hybrid Mechanism with Reconfigurability

This paper presents a novel six degree of freedom 6-PRRRR-P1-SP2S hybrid mechanism with reconfigurability. Firstly, the structure of the hybrid mechanism and its configuration relationship are specifically described. Then, by analyzing different reconfiguration modes of the hybrid mechanism, the degree of freedom (DOF) under the corresponding reconfiguration modes is calculated. Next, the inverse kinematics analysis is carried out for different reconfiguration modes of the hybrid mechanism, and the Jacobi matrices of the input–output relations of the corresponding mechanisms are derived. Finally, the workspace, dexterity, and static stiffness performance of the mechanisms with different reconfiguration modes are analyzed based on the Jacobi matrix. The analysis results show that the proposed 6-PRRRR-P1-SP2S hybrid mechanism is characterized by a large workspace, high dexterity, and high stiffness in different reconfiguration modes to achieve large extension. The proposed hybrid mechanism can be applied to some situations that require large workspace and multiple work modes in the future.