Editorial: New frontiers in parallel robotics

摘要

We are also fully convinced that these emerging topics can only be investigated adequately with bringing together researchers from those distinct communities but with a common interest in parallel robotics to share their experiences, methods, challenges, and issues. Addressing the challenges associated with these new topics from several different complementary perspectives and solutions related to the design, modeling, and control of these novel complex solutions will be beneficial for accelerating the research on these new frontiers of parallel robotics. This research topic, "New Frontiers in Parallel Robotics," includes papers on cable-driven parallel robots (CDPRs), continuum parallel robots and underactuated grasping. Improving the performance of CDPRs is an essential topic in the community. Many current works are related to increasing their wrench closure workspace, studying the stability, proposing new control algorithms for the cabletension allocation or improving their accuracy. In this special issue, we have two papers related to this topic. The first one, entitled "Cable failure tolerant control and planning in a planar reconfigurable cable-driven parallel robot" (authors: A. Raman, I. Walker, V. Krovi and M. Schmid), is willing to propose an algorithm for control and planning which provides the ability to the robot to detect a cable break, thus improving the safety of its use by an operator in a collaborative context. The second paper, "Reconfiguration strategy for fully actuated translational cable-suspended parallel robots" (authors: J. Bettega, G. Boschetti, G. Piva, D. Richiedei, and A. Trevisani), deals with the problem of conserving the tension into the cables while achieving a task in a large workspace of several meter length.Continuum parallel robotics is an emerging field at the frontiers of continuum robots and parallel robotics. Many research questions are still open, among which are investigating new design concepts and finding efficient modelling, in particular for analyzing their dynamics, defining proper algorithms for their workspace computation or defining adequate indices for analyzing their performance. The paper "Singularity analysis of 3-DOF planar parallel continuum robots with constant curvature links" (authors: S. Lilge, K. Wen and J. Burgner-Kahrs) belongs to the latter case. This work conducts a singularity analysis for all possible continuum parallel robot architecture with three identical legs, providing a geometrical understanding of singularity occurrences.Underactuated robotics grippers are of great interest for many applications, especially for grasping fragile objects or avoiding the high cost of creating a robotized hand. The last (but not least) paper of this research topic, entitled "A compact underactuated gripper with two fingers and a retractable suction cup" (authors: J. Courchesne, P. Cardou and P. A. R. Onadja), presents the mechanical design of a new versatile and compact gripper able to grasp objects in constrained environments.In conclusion, the research on parallel robotics has moved beyond the traditional rigid-link fixed-base robots, and the focus has shifted toward exploring emerging types of parallel manipulators. This shift has led to significant scientific challenges, including designing, modeling, and controlling novel closed-chain mechanisms. The research topic "New Frontiers in Parallel Robotics" highlights some of the recent research in cable-driven parallel robots, continuum parallel robots, and underactuated grasping. The papers in this issue propose new control algorithms, reconfiguration strategies, and singularity analysis, among others. These findings will accelerate research on the new frontiers of parallel robotics and enable the development of novel applications.