Optimal Kinematic Design of a Planar Parallel Manipulator with High Speed and High Precision

This paper introduces a novel 2-DOF high speed and high precision planar parallel manipulator. The manipulator consists of a moving platform that is connected to a fixed base by two limbs. Each limb is made up of one prismatic and four revolute joints and the two prismatic axes are arranged orthogonally. In contrast to conventional XY-tables, the manipulator investigated herein doesn´t need decoupling structure. In this paper, firstly, the optimal configuration of the manipulator is obtained based on the condition number. Secondly, for the optimal configuration, the forward and inverse kinematic equations are derived, and the singularity of the manipulator is analysed. Then, the optimal shape and position of workspace is obtained based on the global performance index. Finally, the dimension optimization design is performed according to the optimization objective function, which considers the global condition index and workspace