Comparison study of architectures of four 3 degree-of-freedom translational parallel manipulators

Presents a comparison study of the well-conditioned workspace, stiffness and inertia properties of four 3 degree-of-freedom (DOF) translational parallel manipulators. The well-conditioned workspace of each architecture is maximized and plotted. The stiffness properties of these architectures are then determined. Finally, the inertia properties of these architectures are determined. The limb lengths are normalized to ensure a fair comparison. The results obtained provide a performance index for each of these architectures. The comparison study indicates that none of the architectures is superior to all others with respect to all performance measures. An architecture which suits certain specific performance requirements best should be chosen for an application. Hence this approach is expected to be useful for the conceptual design of hybrid kinematic machines.