Type Synthesis Method for Parallel Robots With Special Topologies

This contribution presents a type synthesis method for parallel robots with special topologies. First, we defined the constraint-incidence matrix (CIM) to describe serial chains by utilizing the geometric properties of screw theory, revealing the motion and constraint attributes and their internal relationship of serial chains. Then, a CIM-based synthesis method is proposed to convert the type synthesis of parallel robots into the geometric derivation of the CIM, and the specific operation steps of the proposed method are given. Finally, we demonstrated the application of the proposed method to the type synthesis of metamorphic, and wheeled parallel robots. Compared with existing type synthesis methods, the CIM-based synthesis method takes advantage of the known topological features of parallel robots with special topologies and can improve the efficiency of type synthesis.