Position kinematics of a two limbed mixed mechanism

Comparatively little attention has been paid to the kinematic and static characteristics of mixed mechanisms which have combinations of the characteristics of fully serial and fully parallel mechanisms. Such actively coordinated mechanisms having combinations of serial and parallel manipulator chains have been practically employed and are expected to become more useful in the future. This work addresses the direct and inverse position kainematics of a two limbed mixed mechanism having multiple actuated joints in each limb, along with other passive joints. Closed form solutions for the direct position kinematics problem have been obtained for two different cases of this mechanism.