Designing Statically Determinable Mechanisms of Technological Mechatronic Machines with Parallel Kinematics

Abstract

The work is devoted to improving the reliability and manufacturability of mechatronic machine designs with parallel kinematics by replacing statically indeterminable manipulators with statically determinable mechanisms. A technique is proposed in which the design of statically determinable manipulators of technological mechatronic machines with parallel kinematics is performed by modifying the structure of prototypes and includes three steps: identifying and analyzing redundant links, eliminating redundant links, checking the correctness of eliminating redundant links. To determine the number of degrees of freedom of the mechanism, identify redundant links, and verify the solution, the authors use the proposed methodology for structural analysis of parallel structure mechanisms. In structural analysis, a manipulator is represented by a hierarchical structure and is considered as a parallel connection of elementary mechanisms with an open kinematic chain; as a kinematic chain consisting of leading and driven parts; as a set of links and kinematic pairs; as a kinematic connection of the output link and the rack. The article implements the following techniques for eliminating redundant links: mobility increase in kinematic pairs; introduction of unloading links and passive kinematic pairs to the kinematic chain; exclusion of extra links and pairs from the kinematic chain; increase in mobility in some kinematic pairs simultaneously with the exclusion of other kinematic pairs that have become superfluous. The authors developed several variants of structural schemes of self-aligning manipulators based on the Orthoglide mechanism, which retain the basic functional proper ties of the prototype. To increase the number of self-aligning mechanism diagrams, the redistribution of mobilities and links within the connecting kinematic chain and between connecting kinematic chains is used. The proposed methodics allow to determine the number of degrees of freedom of the mechanism, the number and type of redundant links, eliminate redundant links and, on an alternative basis, build structural diagrams of statically determinable mechanisms of technological mechatronic machines with parallel kinematics.