Polynomial solution of the spatial burmester problem

The paper presents a new method for the dimensional synthesis of the spatial guidance linkage that features the guided body connected to the base by the interposition of five rods having spherical joints at both extremities. The linkage is required to index the guided body through seven arbitrarily-chosen rigid-body positions. Core of the proposed method is an original algebraic elimination procedure that allows five unknowns to be dropped from a set of six second-order algebraic equations in six unknowns. As a result, a final univariate polynomial equation of twentieth order is obtained whose twenty roots, in the complex domain, represent as many possible placements for a connecting rod. A numerical example is reported.