Singularity Analysis of PAMINSA Manipulators

International audiencePAMINSA (PArallel Manipulator of the I.N.S.A.) is a new family of parallel manipulators from four to six degrees of freedom (DOF), which have been developed at the I.N.S.A. in Rennes. The particularity of these manipulators is the decoupling of displacements in the horizontal plane from its translation along the vertical axis. Such a decoupling improves some mechanical properties of the manipulator making it more efficient. In this paper a singularity analysis of PAMINSA with four, five and six degrees of freedom is presented. The nature of each kind of singularity is discussed

Pantopteron-4: a New 3T1R Decoupled Parallel Manipulator for Pick-and-Place Applications

International audienceIn this paper, a novel 4-DOF decoupled parallel manipulator with Schoenflies motions, called the Pantopteron-4, is presented. This manipulator is able to perform the same movements as the Isoglide4 or the Quadrupteron, but, due to its architecture which is made of three pantograph linkages, an amplification of the movements between the actuators and the platform displacements is achieved. Therefore, having the same actuators for both robots, the Pantopteron-4 displaces (theoretically) many-times faster than the Isoglide4 or the Quadrupteron, depending on the magnification factor of the pantograph linkages. Thus, this mechanism is foreseen to be used in applications where the velocities and accelerations have to be high, as in pick-and-place. First, the kinematics of the Pantopteron-4 is presented. Then, its workspace is analyzed. Finally, a prototype of the mechanism is shown and conclusions are given

A method for extending planar axis-symmetric parallel manipulators to spatial mechanisms

This paper investigates axis-symmetric parallel manipulators, composed of a central base column and an arm system able to rotate around this column. The arm system includes several actuated upper arms, each connected to a manipulated platform by one or more lower arm linkages. Such manipulators feature an extensive positional workspace in relation to the manipulator footprint and equal manipulator properties in all radial half-planes defined by the common rotation-axis of the upper arms. The similarities between planar manipulators exclusively employing 2-degrees-of-freedom (2-DOF) lower arm linkages and lower mobility spatial manipulators only utilising 5-DOF lower arm linkages are analysed. The 2-DOF linkages are composed of a link with a 1-DOF hinge on both ends whilst the 5-DOF linkages utilise 3-DOF spherical joints and 2-DOF universal joints. By employing a proposed linkage substitution scheme, it is shown how a wide range of spatial axis-symmetric parallel manipulators can be derived from a limited range of planar manipulators of the same type

Pantopteron: a New Fully-Decoupled 3-DOF Translational Parallel Robot for Pick-and-Place Applications

International audienceIn this paper, a novel 3-DOF fully decoupled translational parallel robot, called the Pan-topteron, is presented. This manipulator is similar to the Tripteron Cartesian parallel manipulator, but due to the use of three pantograph linkages, an amplification of the ac-tuators displacements is achieved. Therefore, equipped with the same actuators, the mobile platform of the Pantopteron moves many-times faster than that of the Tripteron. This amplification is defined by the magnification factor of the pantograph linkages. The kinematics, workspace and constraint singularities of the proposed parallel robot are studied in detail. Design considerations are also discussed and a possible prototype is illustrated.

Mechatronic modeling of a parallel kinematics multi-axial simulation table based on decoupling the actuators and manipulator dynamics

In this work a mechatronic model was developed for a parallel Multi-Axial Simulation Table (MAST) mechanism. The dynamics of the mechanism was obtained using the principle of energy equivalence and Boltzmann–Hamel equations. In this way, the procedure to obtain the explicit dynamic equations is simplified and has the advantage of being systematic. Also, the actuators and the control were modeled and integrated to simulate and study the system’s positioning and torque. A remarkable contribution of this work is that the mechatronic model developed considers the mechanism as a disturbance to the actuators in a decoupled manner, allowing to easily evaluate alternative designs of whether the actuators, the mechanism or both. Additionally, the procedure taken has been validated with experimental data from an actual MAST prototype.The authors of this paper wish to acknowledge the funding received from the Spanish Government via the Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad (BES-2012-053723 under Project DPI2011-22955 and DPI2015-64450-R), the ERDF of the European Union, the Government of the Basque Country (SAIOTEK 2013 SAI13/245), and the financial support from the University of the Basque Country(UPV/EHU) under the program UFI 11/29

Design of a haptic device for teleoperation and virtual reality systems

IEEE International Conference on Systems, Man and Cybernetics, SMC 2009; San Antonio, TX; United States; 11 October 2009 through 14 October 2009Haptics technology has increased the precision and telepresence of the teleoperation and precision of the in-house robotic applications by force and surface information feedback. Force feedback is achieved through sending back the pressure and force information via a haptic device as the information is created or measured at the point of interest. In order to configure such a system, design, analysis and production processes of a haptic device, which is suitable for that specific application, becomes important. Today, haptic devices find use in assistive surgical robotics and most of the teleoperation systems. These devices are also extensively utilized in simulators to train medical and military personnel. The objective of this work is to design a haptic device with a new structure that has the potential to increase the precision of the robotic operation. Thus, literature is reviewed and possible robot manipulator designs are investigated to increase the precision in haptics applications. As a result of the investigations, conceptual designs are developed. Ultimately, final design is selected and produced after it is investigated in computer-aided- design (CAD) environment and its kinematic and structural analyses are carried out

Design and Prototyping of New 4, 5 and 6 Degrees of Freedom Parallel Manipulators Based on the Copying Properties of the Pantograph Linkage

International audienceIn this paper, a new family of parallel manipulators called PAMINSA 1 is proposed. The particularity of these manipulators is the decoupling of displacements in the horizontal plane from its translation along the vertical axis. The advantages of such an approach are discussed, and a prototype is presented. The positioning errors of the moving platform taking into account the elasticity of links are determined and the performances of such a design are shown