The agile eye: a high-performance three-degree-of-freedom camera-orienting device

This paper presents some results obtained in the development of a three-degree-of-freedom camera-orienting device. The agile eye, as it is referred to, is capable of an orientation workspace larger than that of the human eye. The miniature camera mounted on the end-effector can be pointed within a cone of 140 degrees opening with plus or minus 30 degrees in torsion. The mechanical architecture of the orienting device is based on a spherical three-degree-of-freedom parallel manipulator which leads to high-performance dynamics. A kinematic optimization has been performed in order to determine the dimensional parameters of the prototype which would provide the best overall accuracy. A complete dynamical model of the manipulator has also been derived and programmed, and simulation results have guided the mechanical design. Finally, a prototype has been built and experimented with