Singular configurations and direct kinematics of a new parallel manipulator

A light parallel manipulator currently under development at INRIA is presented. The problems of its singular configurations and its direct kinematics have been addressed. A geometrical approach makes it possible to find the constraint equations on the generalized coordinate vector such that the resulting configuration of the manipulator is singular. This approach will make it possible to determine if some of the singular configurations lie in the workspace of the manipulator. It is shown that the direct kinematic problem has up to 16 solutions, and a set of particular coordinates is exhibited for which the mobile plate may effectively be in 16 different positions.<
>