Kinematics of micro planar parallel robot comprising large joint clearances

Manufacturing of micro-robots by MEMS technology may cause large clearance at the joints - only one order smaller and even of the same order of magnitude as the links themselves. Due to the clearances, the direct kinematic solutions are not discrete, but form a volume that is defined here as the "Clearance-space". When clearances are large enough, two separate regions of the clearance-space may unite, causing a major failure as the forward kinematic may be shifted into a different unwanted solution. This paper suggests an algorithm that calculates the minimal value of the joint clearance in which this severe phenomenon occures.