Optimal design of a 6-DOF parallel robot for precise manipulation

A 3-PPTRR parallel mechanism is presented in this paper. Six high resolution ceramic motors have been used as actuators in the parallel robot for precise manipulation applications. The inverse kinematics of the robot is analysed based on the geometrical restriction, in addition the Jacobian matrix is deduced with the vector method. A global performance index is adopted to optimize the dimensions of the parallel mechanism, and the optimization flow is built in detail. The distribution of the performance index in the whole workspace after optimization is presented. The robot has been developed according to the optimal dimensions, moreover, the resolution and repeatability performances of it are measured. The results show that the robot has fine performances for precise applications.