A heavy discussion on new structures in machine tool engineering was initiated at the International Machine Tool Show (IMTS) in Chicago, in 1994. It had been triggered by the presentation of hexapod machine tools from Giddings & Lewis, Ingersoll, and Geodetic. So far, however, such structures have rather raised the interest of research institutions instead of users. The article deals with the new systems with reference to their setup, advantages and user options and presents a history of their development.
