Kinematic analysis of a compliant, parallel and three-dimensional meso-manipulator generated from a planar structure

Abstract

The study of a parallel meso-manipulator, characterized by flexure hinge joints and by an original planar structure, is addressed in this paper under small displacements. Once the manipulator structure has been briefly introduced, with a particular attention paid within the different possible actuators configurations, a kinematic analysis is performed, underlining different singularity configurations of the system. The analysis of the robot workspace is then addressed, by presenting the symbolical resolution of the problem and the extreme configurations of this architecture. © Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2009.