Synthesis and analysis of a new class of six‐degree‐of‐freedom parallel minimanipulators

摘要

AbstractA new class of 6‐degree‐of‐freedom (dof) parallel minimanipulators is introduced. The minimanipulators are designed to provide high resolution and high stiffness for fine position and force control in a hybrid serial‐parallel manipulator system. Two‐dof planar linkages and inextensible limbs are used to improve positional resolution and stiffness of the minimanipulators. The 2‐dof linkages serve as drivers for the minimanipulators. The minimanipulators require only three inextensible limbs and, unlike most of the six‐limbed parallel manipulators, their direct kinematics can be reduced to solving a polynomial in a single variable. In addition, by using three limbs instead of six other benefits such as lower possibility of mechanical interference between limbs can be realized. All of the minimanipulator actuators are base‐mounted. As a result, higher payload capacity, smaller actuator sizes, and lower power dissipation can be obtained. In addition to the design discussion, kinematic analysis of the minimanipulators is also presented. © 1993 John