Development of a Triglide-Robot with Enlarged Workspace

Abstract

Despite of a promising potential robots based on parallel kinematic structures have not yet found their way into industry on a large scale. One of the main reasons for that is a workspace to installation-space ratio, which usually is inferior to that of their serial counterparts. In this paper development and design issues of a triglide-robot based on the linear delta are presented. Using a workspace enlargement approach based on the use of several workspaces going along with different assembly modes of the structure's the workspace to installation-space ratio of this robot can be enhanced significantly. Additionally this paper is part of a joint effort of several authors to benchmark different kinematic structures using based-fixed linear drives against each other. Thus, the presented structure is characterized using standardized benchmark criteria.