Abstract: In the development process of the human civilization and the society, manufacturing has always been the main source of the social wealth and an important index to evaluate the general national powers. In the time of the world economy global-ization, the design capability of the mechanical products is the embodiment of the general national powers and competitive powers of nations. The heart of manufacturing is the design and the soul of manufacturing is mechanisms which are the essence of the machines being manufactured. The theoretical research of modern mechanisms is the foundation of the manufacturing industry, the headspring of invention and creation of mechani-cal products, the key to improve the national manufacturing level and the international competitive powers. The innovative design of mechanisms determines the innovation of the prod-ucts. The defective design will bring congenital lack of the products, which are called “malformed machines”. For the in-novative design of products, the topological innovative design of mechanisms has the characteristic of original design and is the most challenging and inventing core content of mechanical invention. The research of modern mechanisms has very im-portant signification to improve the independent design level, the innovation and the international competitive powers of our mechanical products. The ultimate target of the investigation of the modern mechanisms is to discover the composition princi-ples of natural and man-made machines, to invent new mecha-nisms, to research the analysis and design theories based on special performance indexes, to provide systematic fundamen-tal theories and effective practical methods for the design, innovation and creation of modern machines and robots.

Key words: Mechanism, Micromachine, Parallel mechanism, Robot