22ème Congrès Français de Mécanique Lyon, 24 au 28 Août 2015

Inverse kinematic Modeling of 3RRR

Parallel Robot
Ouafae HAMDOUN, Fatima Zahra BAGHLI, Larbi EL BAKKALI

Modeling and Simulation of Mechanical Systems Laboratory, Abdelmalek Essaadi, Faculty of

Sciences, BP.2121, M’hannech, 93002, Tetouan, Morocco.

Wafae.hamdoun@gmail.com

Abstract:
This work presents a kinematic study of 3 RRR parallel robot. Indeed, Parallel robot is fundamentally
a closed-loop kinematic chain mechanism in which the end-effector is connected to the base by
several independent kinematic chains. Due to the potential advantages of parallel robots such as high
rigidity, high accuracy and great carrying payload capability, they have fascinated significant
attention and interest amongst the researchers in the past decade.
After describing the mechanism, a kinematic model is established. Based on the geometry of the
manipulator, a workspace analysis is performed in order to define a trajectory planning of the
manipulator.

Résumé:
Dans ce travail on a élaborer un modèle géométrique du robot paralléle 3RRR , En effet, Les robots
parallèles sont des mécanismes à chaînes cinématiques fermées dont l’organe terminal est relié à la
base par plusieurs chaînes cinématiques indépendantes, ils ont plusieurs avantages par rapport aux
robots sériels tels que la rapidité, la précision et un bon rapport charge utile/masse.
Dans notre travail nous avons traité la modélisation géométrique du robot paralléle 3RRR, Ainsi que
l’analyse de l’une des caractéristiques de ce robot : l’espace du travail au but de planifier et
d’optimiser le trajectoire du robot.

Keywords – Inverse kinematic, Workspace, Parallel Robot

1. INTRODUCTION :

In recent years, parallel robots have received huge attention for different researches and applications.
Parallel manipulators are closed-loop mechanisms in which the separate serial chains (links and
joints) are connected to both the fixed base and the moving platform. This new type of robots can
achieve certain tasks that serial robots are not able to perform. Even though serial robots have
advantages like simple dynamic and kinematic models, large workspace, but parallel robots have
advantages more potential than serial robots as better stiffness, high speed, higher kinematical
precision, large load carrying capacity and the most important is the possibility of fixing actuators on
the base, which can be used for fast and precise operations. Parallel robots have also some drawbacks,
the major of them are a limited workspace, complicated singularities.

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22ème Congrès Français de Mécanique Lyon, 24 au 28 Août 2015

Parallel manipulators can be equipped with revolute or prismatic actuators. They have a strong
construction and they are able to move bodies of large dimensions with high velocities and
accelerations [1]. Parallel manipulators can be divided into two fundamental categories, namely
spatial and planar manipulators, The first category composes of the spatial parallel manipulators that
can translate and rotate in the three dimensional space, this category recognized as Stewart–Gough
platform, has received great attention [2-3]. They are used in flight simulators.

The planar parallel manipulator which composes of second category, translate along the x and y-axes,
and rotate around the z-axis, they are useful for manipulating an object on a plane. Gosselin and
Angeles [4] which present a kinematical study of a planar parallel robot, where a moving platform is
connected to a fixed base by three links, each leg consisting of two binary links and three parallel
revolute joints. Sefrioui and Gosselin [5] give an interesting numerical solution in the inverse and
direct kinematics of this kind of planar robot.

Thus, in this work we can formulate our problem as follow: determine the inverse kinematic problem,
given specific points inside the boundary of a desired workspace, establish a workspace analysis of
3RRR planar parallel robot where a simple numerical implementation in Matlab software is carried
out in order to obtain a trajectory planning of the robot.

2. Description of 3 RRR Parallel Robot

In this paper we present a geometric description of 3 RRR parallel robots which composed by a
mobile platform (MP) and three RRR serial chains that join it to a fixed base (Fig. 1). Each RRR
chain is a serial chain composed by three rotational R joints.

Allow P(x, y) be the end-effector position in the plane and  its orientation. Let O be the origin of
the fixed reference frame and let Ai , Bi andCi with i  1, 2,3 define the rotational articulations of
each leg. Ai Points are actuated, so that the actuators are fixed to the base. l Ai is the length of Link
A, l B i is the length of Link B.

A3 3  3
B3
M3

ld3
ld 2
l d1 P M2
1 
B1 l B1 M1 2
B2
l A1 y 2
1 A2
A1 x

Fig.1: Geometric Description of 3RRR parallel robot

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22ème Congrès Français de Mécanique Lyon, 24 au 28 Août 2015

3. Kinematic inverse model of the robot :

The derivation of the inverse kinematics given from the loop closure equation for the 3-RRR parallel
robot is as follow:
OP  OAi  Ai B i  B i M i  M i P (Eq.1)
Writing the equations in component form:

Px  l Ai cos(i )  l Bi cos( i )  l di cos( i   )  x Ai

(Eq.2)
Py  l Ai sin(i )  l Bi sin( i )  l di sin( i   )  y Ai
Where:
 i is the angle between the line l di from the point P to the joint at M i and it is considered
from the line between M 1andM 2 on the moving platform.

To compute the inverse kinematics, we can rewrite the equation as follows:

K i sin   Fi cos  E i (Eq.3)

Where :

E i  Px 2  Py 2  l Ai 2  l Bi 2  l di 2  x Ai 2  y Ai 2  2Px l di cos( i   )  2Px x Ai

2l di x Ai cos( i   )  2Py l di sin( i   )  2Py y Ai  2l di y Ai sin( i   )

Fi  2l Ai  2l Ai l di cos( i   )  2l Ai x Ai

K i    2Py l Ai  2l Ai l di sin( i   )  2l Ai y Ai 
The inverse kinematics solution for equation (3) is:

i  A tan 2(K i , Fi )  A tan 2( (K i 2  Fi 2  E i 2 ), E i ) Eq. (4)

Where:
i  1, 2,3

4. Numerical Implementation of 3 RRR Parrallel Robots

The equation obtained can simply be solved for any number of legs by simply changing the subscript
in equations. For the particular robot there are two possible solutions given by the solutions to
equations. When the roots are imaginary (i.e. there is no real solution) for some given pose, it means
that the position/orientation of that configuration is outside the reachable workspace

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22ème Congrès Français de Mécanique Lyon, 24 au 28 Août 2015

inverse kinematic of 3RRR Parallel robot

15

10
platform

5
Base3

0

Base2

-5

-10 Base1

-15
-15 -10 -5 0 5 10 15

Fig.2: A configuration of 3 RRR

parallel robot

5. The workspace of each link of the parallel robot:

The workspace is the characteristics for a class of 3-DOF. Using numerical simulations, the complete
workspace is identified for each lik of the link

The workspace for the first link The workspace of the second link
3 3
2.5
2
2
1
1.5
Y
Y

1 0

0.5 -1
0
-2
-0.5
-3 -2.5 -2 -1.5 -1 -0.5 0 0.5 1 1.5
-3 -2 -1 0 1 2 3 X
X

The workspace of the third link

3

1
Y

-1

-2
-3 -2.5 -2 -1.5 -1 -0.5 0 0.5 1 1.5
X
Fig.3: the workspace of each link of the manipulator

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22ème Congrès Français de Mécanique Lyon, 24 au 28 Août 2015

The total workspace obtained by the intersection of three regions of the legs of the robot

workspace of 3RRR parallel robot

1.4

1.2

0.8

0.6

0.4
Y

0.2

-0.2

-0.4

-0.6
-0.4 -0.2 0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1 1.2 1.4
X

Fig 3: Intersection between the three regions of mobility of the robot

6. Conclusion
In this work we present an approach for determining the inverse kinematics applied on 3-RRR planar
parallel, Which have important potential for different applications. Thus the analysis of the workspace
of the robot lead us to a great performance and a higher prisicion in positioning of the platform in
order to do a trajectory planning of the manipulator.

References:
[1] J.-P. Merlet, Parallel Robots, Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2000.

[2] V. Parenti Castelli, R. Di Gregorio, A new algorithm based on two extra sensors for real-time
computation of the actual configuration of generalized Stewart–Gough manipulator, J. Mech. Des.
122 (2000).
[3] D. Stewart, A platform with six degrees of freedom, Proc. Inst. Mech. Eng. 180 (15) (1965) 371–
378.

[4] Gosselin CM, Angeles J. The optimal kinematic design of a planar three-degree-of-freedom
parallel manipulator. JMech, Trans Automat Des 1988;110(3):35–41

[5] Sefrioui J, Gosselin CM. On the quadratic nature of the singularity curves of planar three-degree-
of-freedom parallel manipulators. Mech Mach Theory 1995;30(4):533–51.