Kinematic and Elastostatic Design Optimisation of the 3-DOF Gantry-Tau Parallel Kinematic Manipulator

One of the main advantages of the Gantry-Tau machine is a large accessible workspace/footprint ratio compared to many other parallel machines. The Gantry-Tau improves this ration further by allowing a change of assembly mode without internal link collisions or collisions between the links and end-effector. The reconfigurable Gantry-Tau kinematic design obtained by multi-objective optimisation according to this paper gives the following features: 3-D workspace/footprint ratio is more than 3.19, lowest Cartesian stiffness in the workspace is 5N/μm and no link collisions detected. The optimisation parameters are the support frame lengths, the actuator positions and the robot’s arm lengths. The results comparison between the evolutionary complex search algorithm and gradient-based method used for the Gantry-Tau design in the past is also presented in this paper. The detailed statics model analysis of the Gantry-Tau based on a functionally dependency is presented in this paper for the first time. Both the statics model and complex search algorithm may be applied for other 3-DOF Hexapods without major changes. The existing lab prototype of the Gantry-Tau was assembled and completed at the University of Agder, Norway.