Structural design and kinematics of a new parallel reconfigurable robot

Abstract

Reconfigurable robots can be defined as a group of robots that can have different geometries, thus obtaining different structures derived from the basic one, having different degrees of freedom and workspaces. Thanks to the optimum dexterity they offer, the user can accomplish a large variety of industrial tasks, using a structurally optimized robot leading towards better energy control and efficiency especially in case of batch size production lines where the task (for the robot) may vary periodically. Reconfigurable systems are a challenge for numerous scientists, due to the advantage of dealing with changes and uncertainties on the ever-changing manufacturing market. One of the main problems of reconfigurable robots is the proper structural geometry determination, so that the resulting structure is able to perform a variety of tasks. This paper presents the structural design of an innovative parallel robot with six degrees of freedom and its proposed configurations with five, four, three and two degrees of freedom . The kinematic analysis and the workspace representations of all the presented configurations of the parallel robot, called Recrob, are also presented. ► The importance of reconfigurable systems is explained. ► The structural design of a robot with up to six degrees of freedom is described. ► The kinematics of the reconfigurable robot is studied and a simulation is made. ► The reconfigurability of the parallel robot Recrob is explained. ► The workspace of all the configurations of the robot is studied.