Title: Kinematically Redundant Octahedral Motion Platform for Virtual Reality Simulations,
Abstract: We propose a novel design of a parallel manipulator of Stewart Gough type for
virtual reality application of single individuals; i.e. an omni-directional
treadmill is mounted on the motion platform in order to improve VR immersion by
giving feedback to the human body. For this purpose we modify the well-known
octahedral manipulator in a way that it has one degree of kinematical
redundancy; namely an equiform reconfigurability of the base. The instantaneous
kinematics and singularities of this mechanism are studied, where especially
"unavoidable singularities" are characterized. These are poses of the motion
platform, which can only be realized by singular configurations of the
mechanism despite its kinematic redundancy.