Fuzzy Kinematic Reliability of a Cartesian Parallel Manipulator with Clearances

This paper presents a novel method to assess the kinematic reliability of parallel manipulators based on the fuzzy theory. For this purpose, the error propagation method permits to compute the position error in the endeffector, taking into account the clearances, and the kinematic constraints of the parallel manipulator. The failure possibility conveys an assessment of the insight kinematic performance that can not be obtained by the conventional methods used in the literature. Numerical results are compared with the well known probabilistic approach based on the Monte Carlo Simulation (MCS).