A Novel Hydraulic Spherical Joint and Motion Analysis

Proposing a new type of hydraulic drive spherical joint with two degrees of freedom.The joint mechanism has the advantages of hydraulic and also can rotate with multi-degrees of freedom. Based on the mechanism theory, the forward and inverse kinematics equations are derivated and the singular configuration and workspace of the mechanism are found. The spherical joint mechanism has these characteristics: a compact structure, low coupling, large load, and the joint can complete the omni-directional output.