  The class of linear pentapods with a simple singularity variety is obtained
by imposing architectural restrictions on the design in such a way that the
manipulators singularity variety is linear in orientation position variables.
It turns out that such simplification leads to crucial computational advantages
while maintaining the machines applications in some fundamental industrial
tasks such as five axis milling and laser cutting. We assume that a path
between a given start and end pose of the end effector is known which is
singularity free and within the manipulators workspace. An optimization process
of the initial path is proposed in such a way that the parallel robot increases
its distance to the singularity loci while the motion is being smoothed. In our
case the computation time of the optimization is improved as we are dealing
with pentapods having simple singularity varieties allowing a closed form
solution for the local exterma of the singularity distance function. Formally
this process is called variational path optimization which is the systematic
optimization of a path by manipulating its variations of energy and distance to
the obstacle which in this case is the singularity variety. In this process
some physical limits of the mechanical joints are also taken into account.
