A new approach to orientation workspace analysis of 6-DOF parallel manipulators

This paper presents a new discretization method for the computation of the orientation workspace of 6-DOF parallel manipulators, defined as the set of all attainable orientations of the mobile platform about a fixed point. The method is based on the use of a modified set of Euler angles and a particular representation of the orientation workspace. In addition, the projected orientation workspace is introduced for use in 5-axis applications, defined as the set of possible directions of the approach vector of the mobile platform. Alternative ways of computing these two types of workspaces are also discussed.