Publication
Stratifying the singularity loci of a class of parallel manipulators
Journal Article (2006)
Journal
IEEE Transactions on Robotics
Pages
23-32
Volume
22
Number
1
Doc link
http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/TRO.2005.858861
File
Abstract
Some in-parallel robots, such as the 3-2-1 and the 3/2 manipulators, have attracted attention because their forward kinematics can be solved by three consecutive trilaterations. In this paper, we identify a class of these robots, which we call flagged manipulators, whose singularity loci admit a well-behaved decomposition, i.e., a stratification, derived from that of the flag manifold. Two remarkable properties must be highlighted. First, the decomposition has the same topology for all members in the class, irrespective of the metric details of each particular robot instance. Thus, we provide explicitly all the singular strata and their connectivity, which apply to all flagged manipulators without any tailoring. Second, the strata can be easily characterized geometrically, because it is possible to assign local coordinates to each stratum (in the configuration space of the manipulator) that correspond to uncoupled rotations and/or translations in the workspace.
Categories
automation.
Author keywords
parallel manipulators, kinematics singularities, manipulator design, stratification, flag manifold
Scientific reference
C. Torras, F. Thomas and M. Alberich-Carramiñana. Stratifying the singularity loci of a class of parallel manipulators. IEEE Transactions on Robotics, 22(1): 23-32, 2006.
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