Parallel Robot Design

Naqib Daneshjo, Enayat Danishjoo, Sylvia Rovnakova Abstract

A parallel robot is defined as a robot which consists of at least two stiff bodies which are connected by more than one kinematics chain. The Kinematics of these robots consists of several closed driver's frames which form movable polygons in a plain level. Since the joints of a driver's frame are individually connected to each other, there is choice which joint should be driven, i.e. the engines can also be fastened to the frame base. Consequently the moved mass is very low, a fact that in turn allows high accelerations. Due to the high achievable by the high precision and speed, parallel robots will be increasingly interesting for tele-manipulation, surgery, automation technology and production engineering as well as the micro assembly. Keywords: design of parallel robot, modular parallel robots, modular robot

1 Introduction
The increasing improvement of cuts materials in the area of clamp manufacturing and higher requirements for exactness and productivity conventional milling machines hit their limits due to the serial construction. Highly dynamic clump processing leads to high process forces which can be better taken up by parallel structures. By the increased stiffness, failures can by mitigated by distortion of the tool machines under load. Because of these qualities, many manufacturers follow the drafting of parallel robots. The development of new highly dynamic and exact manufacturing methods like the cutting by water jet or laser, increase the popularity of parallel robots as well. With a parallel robot, the number of elements of a kinematics chain is smaller than with a serial robot. Thus, compared to serial structures, mistake propagation is reduced, a fact that leads. Advantage of parallel robots: High acceleration and speed High exactness by means os big stiffness High load-carrying capacity (relation pay load to moved own mass) Low costs by parts similar in design Disadvantage of parallel robots Complex kinematics equation Limited workspace Many singular positions Danger of collision of leadership chains modular reconfigurable parallel robots. These of-the-shelf intelligent mechatronic drives from Germany are selected as the prismatic joint for rapid deployment. Each joint is a selfcontained drive unit with a built-in motor, controller, amplifier, and communication interface. It has a double-cube design with multiple connecting sockets that enable two actuators to be connected in deferent orientations. These features make them suitable for reconfigurable modular robot design. Figure 2 shows four types of passive joint that we have designed and fabricated. They are the revolute joint R (Fig. 2.(a)), cylindrical joint C (Fig. 2.(b)), spherical Joint S (Fig. 2.(c)) and universal joint U (Fig. 2.(d)) joint modules. An angular optical displacement encoder is built into each of the revolute, cylindrical and universal joint modules. The mobile platform (Fig. 3) has a variable number of connecting sockets and can be used for parallel robots with different number of legs.

Fig. 1 Prismatic joint

2 Connectors and Passive joints for Parallel Robots

A modular reconfigurable robotic system is a collection of individual standard functional units (or modules), links and joints that can be used individually or collectively when assembled into various robot configurations. A modular parallel manipulator can thus be rapidly configured for a diversity of tasks. Modularity concepts have been previously introduced in the design of serial robots for exibility, ease of maintenance and rapid deployment. The modular reconfigurable parallel robot can be rapidly constructed and its workspace can be varied by changing the leg positions, joint types, and link lengths for a variety of tasks. Moreover, its components are constructed with standardized units or dimensions thus allowing exibility, variety in use, rapid change-over and ease of maintenance. A type of Joint is required for configuring modular parallel robots. Figure 1 shows the prismatic joint used for

(a)

(b)

(c)

(d)

Fig. 2 Passive Joint Modules, revlute R (a), cylindrical C (b), spherical S (d), universal U (d)

Fig. 3 Connector joints and Mobile Platform (Stewart platform)

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3 Parallel Robot Configuration Design

The Stewart platform is one of the earlier manipulators used for the design of a flight simulator proposed by D. Stewart in 1965. It has six independent and extendible legs connected to two plates by universal joints at the base plate and ball joints at the upper plate. Interest in the Stewart platform and other parallel manipulators was revived in the 80's. Fully parallel-actuated manipulators, in comparison with their serial counterparts, have the advantage of large strength-to-weight ratio due to higher structural rigidity found in closed-chain mechanisms, thus resulting in improved actuator load distribution and stiffness. In addition, the cumulative position errors can be minimized within a loop through calibration, such that the positioning accuracy far exceeds that of conventional serial link manipulators. This broader class consists of manipulator structures containing serial branches with actuator and passive joints. The modular reconfigurable parallel robots that are developed here fall into this category. For the modular reconfigurable parallel robot, there is almost no limit on the number of configurations that can be constructed. At present, we focus on non-redundant 6- DOF in parallel manipulators. The 6- DOF manipulator is preferred because it is a general manipulator with the ability to translate and rotate the end- effector in the x; y; z directions. Hence, it is more dexterous compared to a manipulator with less than 6 DOF. On the other hand, a redundant manipulator with more than 6 DOF has increased dexterous maneuverability. However, due to redundancy, the kinematics and control of the manipulator will be much more complicated. To be capable of 6-DOF force and motion tasks, the manipulator structure must have a minimum of six independent actuated joints distributed among its legs. Each of the legs will comprise passive and actuated joints. If each leg is to have an active role in driving the parallel manipulator, there must be at least one actuated joint in each leg. Moreover, for the end- effector to have a 6-DOF motion capability, the end link of each leg must be capable of 6-DOF motion. A leg capable of providing 6-DOF end link motion and having no joint redundancy will have a total of six 1DOF independent passive and active joints. Therefore, a 6DOF in-parallel manipulator will consist of serial legs, each having six joints freedom with at least one actuator. There should be a total of six actuated joints in the parallel manipulator. Podhorodeski presented an enumeration scheme for a class of parallel robots with 6-DOF, non-redundant topological structure. A summary of the enumeration scheme for the 6-DOF non-redundant parallel manipulator is shown in Table 1. Table 1 Enumeration of 6-DOF Non-Redundant Parallel Manipulator
Number of legs single in parallel 1 2 Number of actuated single degree-offreedom joints in each leg 6 1,5 2,4 3,3 3,3,0 1,1,4 1,2,3 2,2,2 1,1,1,3 1,1,2,2 1,1,1,1,2 1,1,1,1,1,1

From Table 1, 6-DOF in-parallel manipulators can have two to six legs. Manipulators with one leg are excluded because it is a serial manipulator. In this work, a class of threelegged, non-redundant, parallel robots is identified as having symmetrical geometries with simple kinematics and desirable characteristics suitable for our modular parallel robot. The main considerations for choosing the three-legged parallel robot for the modular parallel robot configurations are: i. In order to reduce the inertia of the modular manipulator, the passive spherical joint will be used for the end joints as it provides three axes of rotation within the joint itself. This is important because in modular robots, we try to place the actuator module close to the base and passive joint module, which are much lighter, close to the end as this would reduce the manipulator mass associated with the actuation. Thus, to use the spherical joint as end joint, there must be three or more legs. ii. For 6-DOF motion control, there must be at least six actuator joints. Therefore, only modular parallel robots with two, three or six legs can be designed to have a simple and symmetric kinematic structure. Leg symmetry is an advantage as the workspace of the parallel robot is symmetrical and also the device (e.g., links) production cost can be kept low. iii. The individual actuator is a self-contained drive unit with a built-in motor, a controller, an amplifier, and a communication interface, and hence, it is not very compact. If more legs are used, the possibility of self-interference is greatly increased. Hence, three-legged parallel robots will have a larger dexterous workspace than one with more than three legs. For such a class of three-legged parallel robots, each leg consists of two actuated joints (prismatic and/or rotary), one passive revolute joint and one passive spherical joint. The actuator joint modules in each leg are always placed near the base because of their weight. Based on this fact, we can generate all of the possible robot configurations in this class. Figure 2.4 shows two such possible robot configuretions. Through mobility analysis, the degrees-of-freedom of the manipulator designed can be verified if it has the mobility required. The degrees-of-freedom of the spatial mechanism or the manipulator can be calculated using the mobility equation for the spatial motion addressed by Hunt.

3 4 5 6

Fig. 4 Three Modular Three-legged Parallel Robot Configurations

M = VF * (n g 1) + fi
i 1

(1)

M- obility(number of degrees of freedom of system) VF-factor for a planar problem 3 and for a spatial problem 6

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n- number of links including the base 1. g- number of joints fi- number of degrees-of-freedom for the i-th joint Referring to manipulator on the right in Fig. 4, we have n = 11 links: base, mobile platform and 3 links in each of the three legs g = 12 joints: 3 revolute and 1 spherical joints per leg fi = 1 for revolute joint, and fi = 3 for spherical joint Therefore,

Notice: This paper is elaborated within task handling VEGA1/ 678/08 Rozvoj princpov modulrnosti pre stavbu rekonfigurovatench vrobnch systmov.

i 1

fi = 3 (1 + 1 + 1 + 3 ) = 18

(2)

M = 6 (11 12 1) + 18 = 6 Hence, this confirms that the manipulator has 6-DOF. Similarly, the number of DOF of other parallel manipulators can be calculated. Through proper design, hybrid parallel manipulators exploiting the advantages of both parallel and strictly serial devices can be developed for specific tasks. Figure 5 shows the photos of three 6-DOF three-legged parallel robots that have been built.

Assoc. Prof. Daneshjo Naqib, M.Sc., PhD., Technical University of Kosice, Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, Nemcovej 32, 042 00 Kosice, e-mail: naqib.daneshjo@tuke.sk Danishjoo Enayat, M.Sc., TRW Automotive GmbH, 40547 Dsseldorf, Germany,
e-mail:Enayat.Danishjoo-nonTRW@TRW.COM

Rovnakova Sylvia, M.Sc., Technical University of Kosice, Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, Letn 9, 042 00 Koice, e-mail: sylvia.rovnakova@tuke.sk

References
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Fig. 5 Parallel Robot Fig. 6 Parallel Robot 3- DOF 6- DOF The workspace of parallel robots is considerably limited in comparison to serial robots. The overlapping space of the single axes may lead to collision of the lead chains. The creation of a larger workspace requires a considerable enlargement of the workspace. With parallel robots, one makes a distinction between the recreation room, in which the working platform can be placed, and the workspace in which parallel robots reach the accelerations necessary for task and speed. In general, the workspace is substantially smaller than the recreation room.

4 Conclusions
Some constrains and assumptions are made before we generate the leg structures of parallel robots. As discussed previously, grouping the last 3 DOF of each leg as a passive spherical joint is advantageous in terms of manipulator stiffness and dynamic capabilities. Therefore, all leg structures under consideration will employ a passive spherical joint at the leg end. Next, it is also assumed that there is no offset among the branch links, and the successive joint directions are either parallel or perpendicular. This assumption helps in the construction of the legs and for developing simplified kinematic models. This is in accordance with our hardware design as the actuator modules are cubic in shape. In addition, to avoid joint redundancy and to maintain 6-DOF end-effector motion capability, successive joints cannot be parallel unless separated by a link. Therefore, the requirement to use a passive spherical end-joint combined with the avoidance of unnecessary offsets and also the constraint of successive parallel or perpendicular joint directions define our class of leg structures.

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