Analysis of Kinematic Crosstalk in a Four-Legged Parallel Kinematic Machine

Human-in-the-loop (HIL) immersive simulators integrate a human operator into the simulation loop, enabling real-time interaction with virtual environments. To expose users to controlled acceleration fields, they employ parallel kinematic machines (PKMs), including reduced-degree-of-freedom (DoF) configurations when compact and cost-effective systems are required. These reduced-DoF platforms frequently exhibit kinematic crosstalk, whereby motion along one axis causes unintended displacements or rotations along others. Among compact PKMs, the four-legged, three-DoF platform is widely used, particularly in driving simulators. However, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, its kinematics have never been systematically analyzed in the literature. It is an over-actuated system with specific constraint conditions characterized by actuators that are not fully grounded. As a result, kinematic crosstalk accelerations are not fully determined by kinematic relationships. They also depend on friction at the constraints; thus, they are also determined by the dynamic behavior of the machine, which is difficult to predict during operation. To address this issue, this paper introduces a simplified modeling approach to estimate kinematic crosstalk whose usability is evaluated experimentally both with mono-harmonic, combined DoF tests and in a real-world engineering application on an actual driving simulator. Results show that kinematic crosstalk on the platform is likely to generate acceleration levels up to 4 m/s2, exceeding the vestibular perception threshold of 0.17 m/s2 defined by Reid and Nahon. This result is relevant with respect to enabling a comprehensive assessment of the acceleration field to which the user is actually subjected, which determines the actual quality and immersiveness of the simulation.