Design of an active reconfigurable 2R joint

Abstract

The increasing flexibility requirements in the manufacturing processes has led to the development of novel reconfigurable mechanisms to be implemented in machine heads and tables. This is the case of the reconfigurable parallel manipulators which are also used in a wide variety of applications. These mechanisms include often in their kinematic chains active or reconfigurable joints. In this paper, a 2R active reconfigurable joint is presented. As well as carrying out the kinematic characterization of the joint, a demonstrative prototype has been also built.