Kinematic Design and Simulation of a Novel Three Limbs 5-DOF Parallel Robot for Reconfigurable Manufacture

High efficiency and precision machining of large-scale components is facing significant scientific challenges. To solve this problem, a novel 5-DOF parallel robot used to make up reconfigurable manufacturing systems was proposed. It has three limbs, 17 joints, and is the simplest structure form of 5-DOF parallel robots. A multi-objective optimization approach incorporating the NSGA-II algorithm is used to optimize the kinematic performance of the robots. In which three performance indices, i.e., transmissibility, workspace/volume ratio, and mass are mainly considered. Then, the static and dynamic performance of the virtual prototype are verified using finite element analysis. Numerical simulation shows that the designed 5-DOF machining robot offers satisfactory performance, which is of significant application value.