Closed form forward kinematics solution to a class of hexapod robots

Abstract

We present a class of hexapod robots for which we are able to provide true closed-form (non-numerical) solutions. The class studied in the paper is close to being a general hexapod robot and its engineering implementation can be carried out without any problem. Our method has been implemented using Maple. The algorithm of our methods is very simple and therefore suitable for real time applications. We also proved mathematically that the number of distinct physically possible solutions for the class we considered is at most eight for a given set of leg lengths. This represents the first time such an assertion is proved in the literature.