A New Spatial Three-DoF Parallel Manipulator With High Rotational Capability

Abstract

This paper concerns the proposal and analysis of a novel spatial parallel manipulator. The parallel manipulator consists of a base plate, a movable platform, and three connecting legs. The moving platform has three degrees of freedom (DoFs), which are two degrees of translational freedom and one degree of rotational freedom, with respect to the base plate. The inverse and forward kinematics problems are described in closed forms and the velocity equation of the new parallel manipulator is given. Three kinds of singularities are presented. The workspace for the manipulator is analyzed systematically. Especially, the indices to evaluate the rotational capability of the moving platform of the manipulator will be defined and discussed in detail. Due to the high rotational capability performance, the proposed manipulator has wide application in the fields of industrial robots, simulators, micromotion manipulators, and parallel kinematic machines.