Redundant reconfigurable Delta-type parallel robot

Abstract

This work proposes a redundant reconfigurable Delta-type parallel robot, which is composed of a reconfigurable base platform. Such a base platform is formed by a fixed element and framing squares, which can change the length and height of rotation axes of the active joints between each other and with respect to the center of the fixed element as well. With the reconfiguration design proposal an increment of the operational Cartesian workspace is obtained, compared with the workspace of the Delta-type original version. The velocity analysis is reported by means screw theory, moreover the singularities are analyzed. Finally, a numerical example with the aim to show the advantages of the reconfiguration design over the original version is provided. The results shown that by solving the redundancy based on a performance index, the reconfigurable robot obtains an improvement in the kinematic performance compared with the original Delta-type mechanism.