This paper first presents the concept and the fabrication of a new type of compliant rolling joint which combines the advantages of compliant mechanisms with those of rolling link mechanisms. In this joint, flexible bands create the necessary constraints to enforce a rolling movement between two links. Then, the rapid prototyping techniques used for the compliant rolling joint fabrication are described. The kinematics of one application of this joint in a 3-DOF planar parallel mechanism are then presented. A semigraphical method was used to find the solutions to the inverse kinematic problem. Finally, the workspace analysis and the velocity equations are presented.
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