Parallel manipulators are an interesting alternative to serial robots given the important mechanical and kinematic advantages offered. Nevertheless, they often present more complex and smaller workspaces with internal singularities (Altuzarra et al., 2004; Gosselin & Angeles, 1990). Thus, the workspace size, shape and quality are considered some of the main design criteria of these robots (Merl...

This paper proposes a systematic algorithm based on the interval analysis concept in order to obtain the maximal singularity-free circle or sphere within the workspace of parallel mechanisms. As case studies the 3-RPR planar and 6-UPS parallel mechanisms are considered to illustrate the relevance of the algorithm for 2D and 3D workspaces. To this end, the main algorithm is divided into four sub...

Analytical methods for identifying the boundary to the workspace of mechanical manipulators and the boundary to voids in the workspace are presented. The determination of parametric equations of surface patches that envelop the workspace of serial manipulators was presented elsewhere and is extended in this paper to an analytical method for void identification. Because of the ability to identif...

Human performance measures such as discomfort and joint displacement play an important role in product design. The virtual human Santos, a new generation of virtual humans developed at the University of Iowa, goes directly to the computer-aided design model to evaluate a design, saving time and money. This paper presents an optimization-based workspace zone differentiation and visualization. Ar...

Real-time educational groupware systems allow physically separated learners to work together in a shared virtual workspace at the same time. These systems do not yet approach the interaction richness of a face-to-face learning situation. In particular, one element poorly supported is workspace awareness: the up-to-the-minute knowledge a student requires about other students’ interactions with t...

Mechanical neck disorder (MND) is one of the most common health issues and is characterized by restricted cervical mobility. However, traditional kinematic information often focuses on primary movement in the cardinal plane, which seems insufficient to fully determine the kinematics of the cervical spine because of the complexity of the anatomical structures involved. Therefore, the current inv...

The Accurate calculation of the workspace and joint space for 3 RPS parallel robotic manipulator is a highly addressed research work across the world. Researchers have proposed a variety of methods to calculate these parameters. In the present context a cylindrical algebraic decomposition based method is proposed to model the workspace and joint space. It is a well know feature that this robot ...