Kinematic Analysis of 3-DoF Perpendicular Parallel Manipulator with Flexure Hinge

Parallel manipulators has been extensively studied by virtues or its high force-to-weight ratio and wide spread applications such as vehicle or flight simulator, a machine tool and the end-effecter of robot system. However, as each limb includes several rigid joints, assembling error is demanded strictly, especially in precision measurement and microelectronics. On the other hand, compliant mechanisms take advantage of recoverable deformation to transfer or transform motion, force, or energy and the benefits of compliant mechanisms mainly come from the elimination of traditional rigid joints. In this paper, a new approach investigating the kinematics of a three translational degrees of freedom (DOF) parallel manipulator with flexure hinge is proposed. Based on characteristics of flexure hinge and topology optimal method, the kinematics of the 3-DOF parallel manipulator with flexure hinge and its control system are developed. The parallel manipulator is driven by three piezoelectric actuators and the three actuators in this mechanism are arranged according to the Cartesian coordinate system. Experiments are conducted to give some validation of the theoretical analysis.