A bio-inspired compliant parallel mechanism for high-precision robots

Abstract

In this paper, a compliant parallel mechanism with high precision and a wide working area is presented. A compliant parallel mechanism is a parallel mechanism in which all of the joints are deformable elastic joints. The presented mechanism is composed of circular compliant joints that have been inspired by Drakaea, which is an orchidaceous species. From our analytical and experimental tests, it was revealed that these circular compliant joints have desirable characteristics for composing a compliant parallel mechanism. Based on these primary experimental results, we developed a 3-DOF compliant parallel mechanism for an optic component positioning machine. The prototype evaluation tests revealed the mechanism's advantageous characteristics.