Traversing the singularity hypersurface by applying the input disturbances to 6-SPS parallel manipulator

Abstract

The singular points of a 6-SPS Stewart platform are distributed on the multi-dimensional singularity hypersurface in the task-space, which divides the workspace of the manipulator into several singularity-free regions. Because of the motion uncertainty at singular points, while the manipulator traverses this kind of hypersurface from one singularity-free region to another, its motion cannot be predetermined. In this paper, a detailed approach for the manipulator to traverse the singularity hypersurface with its non-persistent configuration is presented. First, the singular point transfer disturbance and the pose disturbance, which make the perturbed singular point transfer horizontally and vertically, respectively, are constructed. Through applying these disturbances into the input parameters within the maximum loss control domain, the perturbed persistent configuration is transformed into its corresponding non-persistent one. Under the action of the disturbances, the manipulator can traverse the singularity hypersurface from one singularity-free region to another with a desired configuration.