Based on the formula of calculating the degree of freedom for a planar parallel motion mechanism, a simple and easy formula (W=R0-N0) is derived to calculate that for a complex epicyclic gear mechanism in this paper.
While using this formula to calculate the degree of freedom for a complex one, you only need to count out the number of elementary moving parts and simple epicyclic gear mechanism. Moreover, the author illustrates the usage of this, simple formula by example.