Non-Singular Assembly Mode Changing Trajectories of a 6-DOF Parallel Robot

This paper deals with the non-singular assembly mode changing of a six degrees of freedom parallel manipulator. The manipulator is composed of three identical limbs and one moving platform. Each limb is composed of three prismatic joints of directions orthogonal to each other and one spherical joint. The first two prismatic joints of each limb are actuated. The planes normal to the directions of the first two prismatic joints of each limb are orthogonal to each other. It appears that the parallel singularities of the manipulator depend only on the orientation of its moving platform. Moreover, the manipulator turns to have two aspects, namely, two maximal singularity free domains without any singular configuration, in its orientation workspace. As the manipulator can get up to eight solutions to its direct kinematic model, several assembly modes can be connected by non-singular trajectories. It is noteworthy that the images of those trajectories in the joint space of the manipulator encircle one or several cusp point(s). This property can be depicted in a three dimensional space because the singularities depend only on the orientation of the moving-platform and the mapping between the orientation parameters of the manipulator and three joint variables can be obtained with a simple change of variables. Finally to the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first spatial parallel manipulator for which non-singular assembly mode changing trajectories have been found and shown.© 2012 ASME