Family of Six-DOF Novel Two-platform Parallel Robots and Development of Re-configurable Prototypes*

Abstract

The authors have proposed a family of novel six-dof parallel robots comprised of two sub-parallel mechanisms that can directly tilt the MP around x and y axis, and extend the z-axis rotational range by a simple and lightweight one-DOF additional rotation mechanism. This paper reports on developing prototypes and verifying the operations of parallel robots. The notable feature of this research is to construct a single re-configurable prototype machine and controller for verification of the operation of three types of parallel robots. Firstly, the kinematical structures of our proposed robots, which we dubbed PEN2 family, are briefly introduced. Next, joints of the limbs on the arm side and MP side are replaced with equivalent detachable spherical joints for the re-configurable prototype design. Then a novel easy to re-configurable prototype mechanism is designed for the modified PEN2 family. In addition, the development of a Simulink-based controller for the PEN2 family that can be easily re-configured is described. Motions of the PEN2 family were verified using the proposed re-configurable prototypes and controllers.