FORCE-UNCONSTRAINED POSES OF THE 3-PRR AND 4-PRR PLANAR PARALLEL MANIPULATORS

Abstract

Force-unconstrained (singular) poses of the 3-PRR planar parallel manipulator (PPM), where the underscore indicates the actuated joint, and the 4-PRR, a redundant PPM with an additional actuated branch, are presented. The solution of these problems is based upon concepts of reciprocal screw quantities and kinematic analysis. In general, non-redundant PPMs such as the 3-PRR are known to have two orders of infinity of force-unconstrained poses, i.e., a three-variable polynomial in terms of the task-space variables (position and orientation of the mobile platform). The inclusion of redundant branches eliminates one order of infinity of force-unconstrained configurations for every actuated branch beyond three. The geometric identification of force-unconstrained poses is carried out by assuming one variable for each order of infinity. In order to simplify the algebraic procedure of these problems, the assumed or “free” variables are considered to be joint displacements. For both manipulators, an effective elimination technique is adopted. For the 3-PRR, the roots of a 6th-order polynomial determine the force-unconstrained poses, i.e., surfaces in a three dimensional space defined by the task-space variables. For the 4-PRR, a 64th-order polynomial determines curves of force-unconstrained poses in the same dimensional space.