Kinematic analysis of a hybrid serial-parallel manipulator

摘要

The kinematic analysis of a new type hybrid serial-parallel manipulator is presented. This manipulator is based on two kinds of 3-UPU parallel mechanisms (PM). Each 3-UPU possesses one platform, one base and three limbs, and hence has 3 degrees of freedom (DOF). Each limb comprises of universal (U), prismatic (P), and universal (U) joints in series. Therefore the hybrid manipulator has totally 6 degrees of freedom and has also an elegant structure. The moving platform (mid platform) of the first PM moves with pure translation with respect to the fixed base and the moving platform (end platform) in the second PM only changes its orientation with respect to the mid platform. In this paper, closed-form kinematic solutions are obtained for this type of mechanism and related theoretical results have been verified numerically.