MECHANICAL ERROR ANALYSIS OF SPHERICAL FUNCTION GENERATING MECHANISMS - A PROBABILISTIC APPROACH.

The problem of analyzing spherical function generating mechanisms for mechanical error is considered by using a probabilistic approach. The effect of tolerances and clearances is considered by treating the link lengths and the clearances as random variables. The mechanical errors for the three-sigma band of confidence level are established for all the example problems considered, and the results are compared with those given by a deterministic method.