Determination of the optimal geometry of modular parallel robots

Modular parallel robots are mechanisms which can adapt their geometry according to the task to be performed, usually by changing the location of the attachment points of the legs of the base. The main ideas underlying this concept are that by changing the geometry of the robot one can extend the reachable workspace and furthermore, as the performances of parallel robots are very sensitive to the geometry, it will be possible to improve the performances of the robot. We propose an algorithm which first adapt the geometry so that a set of given trajectories is included in the workspace of the robot and then optimize an arbitrary secondary criterion. We show that indeed modular parallel robot allow for drastic increase in the performances of the robot.