Publication

New geometric approaches to the analysis and design of Stewart-Gough platforms

Journal Article (2014)

Journal

IEEE/ASME Transactions on Mechatronics

Pages

445-455

Volume

19

Number

2

Doc link

http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/TMECH.2013.2239305

File

Download the digital copy of the doc pdf document

Abstract

In general, rearranging the legs of a Stewart-Gough platform, i.e., changing the locations of its leg attachments, modifies the platform singularity locus in a rather unexpected way. Nevertheless, some leg rearrangements have been recently found to leave singularities invariant. Identification of such rearrangements is useful not only for the kinematic analysis of the platforms, but also as a tool to redesign manipulators avoiding the implementation of multiple spherical joints, which are difficult to construct and have a small motion range. In this study, a summary of these singularity-invariant leg rearrangements is presented, and their practical implications are illustrated with several examples including well-known architectures.

Categories

robot kinematics, robots.

Author keywords

Stewart–Gough platforms, parallel robots, computational kinematics, manipulator design, singularity analysis

Scientific reference

J. Borràs, F. Thomas and C. Torras. New geometric approaches to the analysis and design of Stewart-Gough platforms. IEEE/ASME Transactions on Mechatronics, 19(2): 445-455, 2014.