Design of a Ball Joint and Rod with Large Swing Angle for a Parallel Robot in Which Epoxy-Type Bond is Used.

Abstract

This paper proposes the design of a large swing angle ball joint for parallel mechanisms. Parallelly-actuated mechanisms have the disadvantage of having smaller workspace compared to the serial mechanisms. It is important to get a larger workspace in order to extend the application range. But the workspace of a parallel robot depends on the swing angle of the ball joints used in it. However, if the housing of the ball joint is milled close to the equator of the ball to achieve a large swing angle, the ball joint may leave the housing during motion. Here, we propose an experimental model of a ball joint using the epoxy bond, without using any special techniques to realize a comparatively cheaper and simpler ball joint with large swing angle. An experiment to verify its utilization and performance is conducted.