Unified infinitesimal kinematics of a 3-RRR/PRR six-degree-of-freedom parallel-serial manipulator (Q6169764)

The paper shows the analysis of a very interesting hybrid manipulator which is a combination of a planar parallel 3-RRR manipulator with a spacial serial PRR manipulator mounted on its platform. This combination yields a six-degree-of-freedom manipulator, which can be seen -- mathematically -- as a spherical wrist whose center is translated in space. The author performs the forward and inverse kinematic analysis and found, in both cases, up to eight solutions, using algebraic elimination techniques. Afterwards a velocity, singularity and acceleration analysis was performed using screw theory. The article finishes with a detailed numerical example. In my opinion this is a very interesting and well-written article, but the author could have spent more effort to argue about the choice of the parallel and serial components of the hybrid mechanism. In case of the parallel planar mechanism there would exist other opportunities with different properties, as for example presented in [\textit{C. Gosselin}, Kinematic analysis, optimization and programming of parallel robotic manipulators. Montréal: McGill University (PhD Thesis) (1988)].