Workspace and Singularity Analysis of Five Bar Planar Parallel Manipulator

This paper presents an analysis of workspace and singularity of a five-bar planar parallel manipulator with revolute joints. The traditional approach of kinematic analysis is not suitable for parallel manipulator. Therefore, the inverse kinematic approach is used for the workspace analysis. A simplified equation for tracing the boundary of the workspace is presented. Practically, the manipulator stops or fails to operate after traveling certain distance within the workspace due to the occurrence of singularity, therefore singularity must be avoided for a smooth operation of manipulator. In the present paper, the mathematical conditions for the three kinds of singularity of five-bar planar parallel manipulator are derived, which is based on Jacobian matrices and represent the corresponding singularity configuration. The results are useful to the design, manufacturing and control of a five-bar planar parallel manipulator. This kind of analysis is very important while designing the industrial robotic manipulator.