The advantage of a kinematic mount is that it locates one rigid body relative to another with very high repeatability, without over-constraining the body or introducing instability. It accomplishes this by using the precise number (and arrangement) of contact points needed to allow the desired degrees of freedom – no more and no less. That is the principle of kinematic constraint, which this article will show how to apply in your designs.
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Precision machine design and optomechanical engineering are the domain of deflection – designing a thing so it can hold a position, move to a position, or follow a position with a level of accuracy that is many orders of magnitude smaller than the size of the thing itself.
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Kinematic mounting is the concept of locating and orienting a rigid body by no more than N points of contact, where (6 – N) is the remaining number of degrees of freedom (DOF). A trihedral socket provides exactly three points of contact, leaving the three rotational degrees of freedom, like a traditional ball and socket joint but with much higher precision. But a trihedral socket can be difficult to machine. This article discusses a number of methods for fabricating a trihedral socket that can produce both true and approximate kinematic mounting, for use in both precision machine design and optomechanical engineering applications.
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