A novel 2-DOF compound compliant parallel guiding mechanism

Based on the analysis of existing guiding mechanisms, a novel 2-DOF compound compliant parallel guiding mechanism (2-DCCPGM) is proposed in this paper, which has compact structure, long motion range and negligible parasitic displacements. The relationship between the guiding displacements and the driving forces have been obtained from the pseudo-rigid-body (PRB) model of 2-DCCPGM. And the dynamic analysis is taken as well. Some design criteria are put forward, based on the analytical results. To analysis the guiding capability and the dynamic performance of 2-DCCPGM, finite element analysis (FEA) has been carried out. And the results of the static FEA simulations confirmed that the 2-DCCPGM barely generates parasitic displacements. A prototype has been manufactured, and experiments have been conducted to validate the performance of the 2-DCCPGM. And from the experimental results, the 2-DCCPGM has been proved to have satisfactory guiding performance. Moreover, the experiment results have also revealed that the machining deviation of the flexure hinges of 2-DCCPGM could cause parasitic displacements and reduce the guiding linearity of the 2-DCCPGM.