Development of a parallel manipulator for force display

We have developed a high performance force display system with a parallel manipulator. The manipulator is composed of a parallel mechanism with direct drive linear servo actuators. The mechanism is called a fixed linear type parallel mechanism. Since the actuators are fixed on the base, the high speed motion of the manipulator is possible. In addition, the mechanism has high load capacity and back derivability. These characteristics lead to a high performance force feedback control. We describe the design policy, the analysis of the operation area, the prototyping and control of the parallel manipulator.