Abstract
The current research of reconfigurable parallel mechanism mainly focuses on the construction of reconfigurable joints. Compared with the method of changing the mobility by physical locking joints, the geometric constraint has good controllability, and the constructed parallel mechanism has more configurations and wider application range. This paper presents a reconfigurable axis (rA) joint inspired and evolved from Rubik's Cubes, which have a unique feature of geometric and physical constraint of axes of joint. The effectiveness of the rA joint in the construction of the limb is analyzed, resulting in a change in mobility and topology of the parallel mechanism. The rA joint makes the angle among the three axes inside the groove changed arbitrarily. This change in mobility is completed by the case illustrated by a 3(rA)P(rA) reconfigurable parallel mechanism having variable mobility from 1 to 6 and having various special configurations including pure translations, pure rotations. The underlying principle of the metamorphosis of this rA joint is shown by investigating the dependence of the corresponding screw system comprising of line vectors, leading to evolution of the rA joint from two types of spherical joints to three types of variable Hooke joints and one revolute joint. The reconfigurable parallel mechanism alters its topology by rotating or locking the axis of rA joint to turn all limbs into different phases. The prototype of reconfigurable parallel mechanism is manufactured and all configurations are enumerated to verify the validity of the theoretical method by physical experiments.
Highlights
In recent years, the reconfigurable mechanism [1] has become a development trend of mechanisms adapted to different requirements and environments
A new type of reconfigurable modular parallel robot was proposed by Carbonari et al [16], which is equipped with a locking system to fix one of the revolute joints and is able to perform different types of motion, especially pure translation and pure rotation
This paper presents a newly reconfigurable Axes joint inspired by the Rubik’s Cube for the construction of metamorphic parallel mechanisms with the ability of mobility change
Summary
The reconfigurable mechanism [1] has become a development trend of mechanisms adapted to different requirements and environments. In order to realize the conversion among spherical joint, Hooke joint and revolute joint, the relative position or motion between the three axes is changed by geometric or physical locking to form a joint with variable mobility. The axis 2 is adjusted to the position where it is neither perpendicular nor collinear with the axis 1, resulting in the rA joint in this phase being expressed as rA-2, which is an equivalent spherical joint whose three axes are not perpendicular to each other. Equivalent Hooke joint phase: when the axis 2 is adjusted to be collinear with the axis 1, the mobility of rA joint decreases from 3 to 2, and a joint with two effective axes is generated. When adjusting the position of the axis 2, it is necessary to ensure that the axis 3 is not locked and perpendicular to the plane of the grooved ring
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