Kinematic analyses of novel translational parallel manipulators

Abstract

This study reports on the kinematic analyses of four translational parallel manipulators (3RPC, SPS + 2RPC, RPPR + 2RPC and RPPR + 2PPP) articulated with linear actuators. They are based on serially connected chains which are connected with cylindrical (C), prismatic (P), revolute (R), spherical (S) and universal (U) joints. Of these manipulators, the one which is a fully decoupled, fully isotropic and singularity-free translational parallel manipulator (RPPR+2PPP) offers a one-to-one correspondence between its input and output displacement. This makes its forward and inverse position analyses simpler with a set of linear equations to be solved. Although the other manipulators have coupled kinematics, they still have simpler forward kinematic equations over other well-known translational parallel manipulators reported in the literature. We also employ screw theory to undertake the velocity and acceleration analyses. The primary contribution of this manuscript is to show how the 3-RPC translational parallel manipulator can be gradually modified in order to obtain a fully isotropic, fully decoupled and singularity-free translational parallel manipulator.