Two types of bennett mechanism are      encountered in most of the related literatures. This research aims at finding the best type of bennett mechanism out of the two and then using it for suitable application. One type of bennett mechanism is known as equilateral bennett mechanism, which has all the four kinematic links of equal lengths. Next type is a bennett mechanism having their opposite links of equal length. Using the two types of bennett mechanism, two different networks are created. Their working range, minimum foldability and maximum foldability of the networks were identified using MATLAB-SimMechanics toolbox. Thus, the network having better foldability was identified, so that it can be used for making foldable tent application, which is a deployable structure. The results from the analysis prove that equilateral bennett mechanism had better foldability than its counterpart. Then on analyzing the shapes of the networks, it was found that the networks had a saddle shape. The obtained saddle surface provided certain results like, when the twist angles of the bennett links were varied, saddle surfaces with more steepness are obtained. The influence of twist angle on angular displacement, angular velocity, and angular acceleration of the mechanism were also analyzed. Singularity analysis of these networks was done in Matlab-SimMechanics simulation environment. Coupler curves for both types of bennett mechanism were plotted to identify the trajectory of the output links

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Purpose: Exoskeleton robots generally have multi-functions and one such function is doing rehabilitation therapy in upper limb and lower limb in stroke-affected patients. A novel hybrid (serial-parallel) robot manipulator was proposed in this paper for rehabilitation of upper limb and its kinematics are studied systematically. This robot manipulator intends to perform wrist flexion, wrist extension, wrist radial deviation, wrist ulnar deviation, elbow flexion, elbow extension, elbow pronation and elbow supination motions. The contemporary mechanical designs especially the kinematic structure of upper limb exoskeleton robots have a unique feature that is, almost all of them use serial manipulators, and few others used parallel manipulators. The kinematic structure of the proposed robot is that of a hybrid manipulator (two parallel manipulators connected in series) which has 4-degrees-of-freedom. It is composed of an upper 3SPS-type parallel manipulator and 2SPR-type parallel manipulator connected in series. Methods: The Jacobian and Hessian Matrix method was used to derive the manipulator kinematic formula for solving the displacement, velocity and acceleration. Results: A 3D model of the robotic arm was constructed and analyzed by simulation. The positioning workspace of manipulator was constructed and analyzed. Conclusions: The 3SPS-type parallel manipulator has good kinematic characteristics while performing wrist motions. The 2SPR-type parallel manipulator produced singular configuration, while performing the desired rehabilitation elbow motions, it was found to not be suitable for usage in performing rehabilitation therapy in stroke-affected patients.