Software Tool to Compute, Analyze and Visualize Workspaces of Parallel Kinematics Robots

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to present a new software tool designed to compute and allow visualization of the different types of workspaces of parallel manipulators in the most user-friendly and efficient way. The graphical interface of this program makes it possible to define the geometrical scheme of the robot. All required parameters of the kinematic model can be set easily and quickly. Given that the workspace of a parallel manipulator is a complex entity, this CAD tool has implemented all the controls needed to visually define all the complicated parameters required to launch a workspace computation. Once the calculations are performed, the challenging task of visualizing the results has been optimized. Due to the circumstance that a workspace can be a higher than three-dimensional (3-D) mathematical entity, which cannot be graphically represented, the user can choose the specific variables (two or three) onto which to project the workspace obtained (2-D or 3-D representations). Within these surfaces and volumes, several color maps, associated with kinematic indicators, can be traced to enable the most efficient path planning of the manipulator analyzed.