Workspace Analysis of Stewart-Gough-Type Parallel Manipulators

Abstract

In this paper, for the first time, a complete analysis of the reachable workspace of a spatial Stewart—Gough platform with planar base and platform (SGPP) is presented. The devised workspace algorithms are applied to a commercial 6–6 design. Major importance is given to the visualization of the results of this workspace analysis to provide fast information to the designer on the overall kinematic behaviour of the designed mechanism. Furthermore, it is shown that the reachable workspace also gives the necessary information on how to construct a building enclosing all motion instances of an actual hexapod design.