Development of a milling parallel robot for educational purposes

Abstract

Parallel mechanisms have been investigated during the last two decades, due to the fact that they present some advantages in a comparison with serial structures, namely, the ability to perform fast motions, modular construction, lightness and high load capacity. Regarding the utilisation of parallel mechanisms on milling applications, a great number of architectures have been proposed by industry and academia. From the academia viewpoint, we believe that mechanical engineering students should have the contact with these equipments in their course labs. A parallel robot could be part of an experimental test-bed to analyse its behaviour under milling operations. However, due to the fact that available commercial parallel robots for milling are expensive, not affordable to several academic institutions, we decided to design and build one. Basically, the machine had to satisfy the following requirements: only three axis for milling, modular construction and the utilisation of low-cost standard components. In this work, we present the development of a milling parallel robot for educational purposes. The paper sections deal with the conceptual design, the chosen structural synthesis procedure, the kinematic analysis, workspace, static error evaluation and the characteristics of the built prototypes.