The design of a mechanical transmission taking into account the transmitted forces is reported in this paper. This transmission is based on Slide-o-Cam, a cam mechanism with multiple rollers mounted on a common translating follower. The design of Slide-o-Cam, a transmission intended to produce a sliding motion from a turning drive, or vice versa, was reported elsewhere. This transmission provid...

This paper presents a novel 4 dofs (3T-1R) parallel actuatedly redundant mechanism and its workspace analysis, based on a performance index involving velocity and force capabilities. The robot is capable of performing a half-turn about the z axis. Moreover, having all of its prismatic actuators along one direction; the x motion is independentonly limited by the stroke of the prismatic actuators...

We present several prototypes of wire-driven parallel robots that we have recently designed and which use two different actuation schemes. Two of them have been completed and submitted to extensive tests. These tests have allowed to determine interesting open problems related to kinematics that are presented.

The paper addresses kinematic and geometrical aspects of the Orthoglide, a three-DOF parallel mechanism. This machine consists of three fixed linear joints, which are mounted orthogonally, three identical legs and a mobile platform, which moves in the Cartesian x-y-z space with fixed orientation. New solutions to solve inverse/direct kinematics are proposed and we perform a detailed workspace a...

CaPaMan (Cassino Parallel Manipulator) is a 3-Degree Of Freedom spatial parallel manipulator that has been designed at the Laboratory of Robotics and Mechatronics, in Cassino. In this paper we present a formulation for an optimum design for CaPaMan architecture when the workspace is suitably prescribed.

Parallel mechanisms frequently contain an unstable type of singularity that has no counterpart in serial mechanisms. When the mechanism is at or near this type of singularity, it loses the ability to counteract external forces in certain directions. This paper considers an interesting alternative to redundant actuation through the application of additional kinematic constraint via passive joint...

The optimization of the pressure angle in a cam-follower transmission is reported in this paper. This transmission is based on Slide-o-Cam, a cam mechanism with multiple rollers mounted on a common translating follower. The design of Slide-o-Cam, a transmission intended to produce a sliding motion from a turning drive, or vice versa, was reported elsewhere. This transmission provides pure-rolli...

The orthoglide is a 3-DOF parallel mechanism designed at IRCCyN for machining applications. It features three fixed parallel linear joints which are mounted orthogonally and a mobile platform which moves in the Cartesian x-y-z space with fixed orientation. The orthoglide has been designed as function of a prescribed Cartesian workspace with prescribed kinetostatic performances. The interesting ...

In this paper, a systematic approach is developed for the structural synthesis of a class of four-degrees-of-freedom (4-DoF) and 5-DoF overconstrained parallel manipulators with identical serial limbs. The theory of screws and reciprocal screws is employed for the analysis of the geometric conditions that must be met by the limbs of such parallel manipulators. Limb structures that can be used f...

This paper concerns the forward kinematics and tension distribution of sinking winches mechanism, which is a type of four-cable-driven partly constrained parallel robot. Conventional studies on forward kinematics of cable-driven parallel robot assumed that all cables are taut. Actually, given the lengths of four cables, some cables may be slack when the platform is in static equilibrium. Theref...