Abstract
This paper presents a methodology for the stiffness analysis of a low-DOF parallel manipulator. A low-DOF parallel manipulator is a spatial parallel manipulator which has less than six degrees of freedom. The reciprocal screws of actuations and constraints in each leg can be detemlined by making use of the theory of reciprocal screws, which provide information about reaction forces due to actuations and constraints. When pure force is applied to a leg, the leg stiffness is modeled as a linear spring along the line. For pure couple, it is modeled as a rotational spring about the axis. It is shown that the stiffness model of an F-DOF parallel nipulator consists of F springs related to actuations and 6-F springs related to constraints connected from the moving platform to the base in parallel. The 6×6 Cartesian stiffness matrix is derived, which is the sum of the Cartesian stiffness matrices of actuations and constraints. Finally, the 3-UPU, 3-PRRR, and Tricept parallel manipulators are used as examples to demonstrate the methodology.
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