Conceptual design, structural analysis and performance evaluation of a novel planar parallel robot

This paper reports conceptual design and structural analysis of a novel planar parallel robot including parallelogram linkages. The appropriate natural frequencies of robot throughout the whole workspace are predicted by FEA dynamic simulation, in which both links' and joints' flexibility is considered. And four main factors to determine the natural frequency, payload, flexibility of joints, and cross section of links and pose of the robot are analyzed. Extensive structural vibration experiments with the completed manipulator confirm the simulation results. Performance evaluation experiments prove the robot's performance under a 1D-2D fuzzy self-tuning PI controller, the settling time of the robot is less than 100 milliseconds under normal working cycle and peak acceleration reaches 5 g