Constraint Singularities of Force Transmission in Nonredundant Parallel Robots With Less Than Six Degrees of Freedom

Abstract

The analysis of the workspace singularities is one of the fundamental aspects in the design of parallel robots. The architecture singularities are generally studied analysing the local properties of the Jacobian matrix. Nevertheless, for limited-DOF parallel robots, there is a category of singularities (constraint or constructive singularities), relating to the constraint force transmission, which are not described by this matrix. This paper deals with a general approach to the analysis of these singularities, used in the synthesis of a Linear Delta robot to suitably modify its geometry, remarkably improving the structural behavior. Details and numerical results are provided.