Synthesis of Rectilinear Motion Generating Spatial Mechanism With Application to Automotive Suspension

Abstract

This paper proposes a synthesis method for rectilinear motion generating spatial mechanism with application to automotive suspension. First, it presents a generic process to synthesize the kinematic chains of a mechanism with the prescribed mobility, and then it deduces the construction criteria of feasible kinematic chains for such a mechanism. The most outstanding advantages of the rectilinear motion generating spatial mechanism used as the independent automotive suspension are that the orientation and position parameters such as kingpin, caster, camber, axis distance, and wheel track are always maintained constant during jounce and rebound. These ideal characteristics are guaranteed by the particular rigid guidance mechanism whose end effector only has one translation along an exact straight line.