A novel parallely actuated bio-inspired modular limb

An increasing interest towards functionally independent and self-reconfigurable robots featured the research direction in the recent past. Such attention is well explained by the characteristics of flexibility and cost-effectiveness which distinguish these modular machines. This scenario framed the birth of many different devices characterized by simplicity of use and versatility. The present manuscript follows these trends by presenting a newly conceived device suitable for being used as a limb, as well as a planar two degrees of freedom manipulator. The features of both parallel and serial kinematic mechanisms have been exploited to the aim of obtaining a device as much as possible independent from the frame to whom it is connected. Formal aspects about position and velocity kinematics are addressed and a specifically built prototype is then used for experimental tests on the new limb.