Type synthesis of 6-DOF mobile parallel link mechanisms based on screw theory

Abstract

Mobile parallel mechanisms (MPMs), which are parallel mechanisms with moveable bases, have previously been proposed to resolve the limited workspace of conventional parallel mechanisms. However, most previous studies on the subject focused on the kinematic analysis of some specific MPMs and did not discuss a type synthesis method for MPMs. With this in mind, we propose a screw theory-based type synthesis method to find out possible 6-degrees-of-freedom (DOF) MPM structures. In our proposed method, the 6-DOF mobility is divided into 3-DOF planar motion and 3-DOF spatial motion, both of which are realized by the transmitted planar motions of the driving units. Separately, the type synthesis of the entire MPM is divided into that of the driving unit and connecting chain. To realize 3-DOF spatial motion, two methods, applying singularity configuration and adding an additional chain, are proposed as ways to restrict undesired motions for the synthesis of the connecting chain. The driving unit is synthesized via the same type-synthesis method as the connecting chain by considering the driving unit as a planar mechanism. The method used to integrate the driving unit and the connecting chain was constructed based on whether the end pair of the connecting chain should be connected with the driving unit directly or driven by it through an actuating mechanism. As a result, 284 possible types of MPM structure are suggested and four examples of MPMs with six DOFs were synthesized to verify the feasibility of the proposed method.