On the kinematics analysis of a novel spherical robot with unlimited rotation around an axis

Abstract

This paper propose a new spherical parallel robot for celestial orientation, and rehabilitation applications (TV satellite dish, tracking systems, solar panels, cameras, telescopes, table of the machine tools, ankle, shoulder, wrist and etc.). The proposed robot can completely rotate about an axis. After describing the robot and its inverse position analysis, using the genetic algorithm, the dimensional optimization to maximize the workspace of the robot is performed. The workspace analysis shows that the proposed robot has a relatively large workspace. The workspace analysis was shown that the robot has a relatively large workspace. Next, accuracy analysis is performed using the inverse kinematics, Jacobian matrices and the workspace analyses. Two accuracy performance measures, KCI and GCI are calculated. The GCI of the proposed manipulator is compared with other 3-DOF parallel manipulators. Results indicate that GCI of SST manipulator is in "good" range. Finally, a method to specify the acceptable direct kinematics problem is advised and a numerical example for following a desired trajectory was presented.