Workspace analysis and optimization of a novel 3-DOF parallel manipulator

摘要

A variety of definitions of the workspace of a mechanism can be found in literature. In this paper, the dexterous workspace is defined as a subspacc of the reachable workspace having adequate performance of a dexterity measure, e.g. the condition number of the Jacobian matrix. The dexterous workspace of a three degree-of-freedom (dof) spatial, parallel mechanism is studied. In order to study workspace volume changes as the architectural parameters are changed, several plots of the dexterous workspace are presented. The shape, size, and symmetry of the workspace is found to be very dependent on the particular set of architectural parameters chosen for the mechanism. Finally, architecture optimization of the device is undertaken, demonstrating that, for specific values of design variables, maximization of the workspace volume can be achieved.