CAD-enhanced workspace optimization for parallel manipulators: A case study

The challenges of workspace determination of parallel manipulators (PMs) arise principally from the lack of analytical solutions of the forward kinematics. The inverse-position kinematics based approach for determining workspace tends to be inefficient, time consuming and unsophisticated. In this paper, we present a geometry-based method for accurate and computationally effective calculation of the workspace of a constrained parallel manipulator. We illustrate how boolean geometric operations can simplify the process of finding the workspace and optimizing the designs. Comparative performance studies, in terms of accuracy and computational performance, are performed to benchmark the approach against more conventional methods. Finally, we examine ways to further automate the process using a CAD package.