Design of a six-DOF motion tracking system based on a Stewart platform and ball-and-socket joints.

•Propose a new low-cost Hexapod (or Stewart platform) design for the performance evaluation of industrial robots.•Suggest simple calibration process utilizing magnetic-ball-and-socket joints.•Create a corresponding software for the hexapod kinematics and its visualization.•The experiments show the average root mean square (RMS) position accuracy error of the proposed device is less than 0.186 mm and the average of angular accuracy error is less than 0.160°.