FORWARD KINEMATICS OF THE GENERAL 6-6 FULLY PARALLEL MECHANISM - AN EXHAUSTIVE NUMERICAL APPROACH VIA A MONO-DIMENSIONAL-SEARCH ALGORITHM

A new numerical method for the solution of the direct position analysi s of the six d.o.f. fully parallel mechanism with general geometry, of ten referred to as generalized Stewart platform mechanism, is presente d. The main feature of the method, making it attractive with respect t o the methods available in the literature, is the ability to find out all the real solutions of the direct position analysis. The effectiven ess of the new algorithm relies upon the solution of only one equation in one unknown. That equation is strictly representative of the probl em, i. e., it is free from extraneous roots and every solution of the direct position analysis entails the existence of a root for the equat ion. A case study is reported.