The Kinematics of Manipulators Built From Closed Planar Mechanisms

TL;DR

This paper explores the kinematics of planar closed-chain manipulators, identifying promising designs with simplified control, analyzing their workspace and singularities, and validating the approach through simulation and prototype testing.

Contribution

It introduces a special kinematic scheme for planar manipulators that simplifies control and provides insights into workspace and singularities, supported by simulation and prototype verification.

Findings

Identified promising kinematic schemes for manipulators.

Analyzed workspace and singular configurations.

Validated approach with simulation and prototype.

Abstract

The paper discusses the kinematics of manipulators builts of planar closed kinematic chains. A special kinematic scheme is extracted from the array of these mechanisms that looks the most promising for the creation of different types of robotic manipulators. The structural features of this manipulator determine a number of its original properties that essentially simplify its control. These features allow the main control problems to be effectively overcome by application of the simple kinematic problems. The workspace and singular configurations of a basic planar manipulator are studied. By using a graphic simulation method, motions of the designed mechanism are examined. A prototype of this mechanism was implemented to verify the proposed approach.