Optimal design of a linear delta robot for the prescribed regular-shaped dexterous workspace

This paper follows a method to determine a set of optimal design parameters of a linear Delta robot (LDR) whose workspace is as close as possible of being equal to a prescribed regular-shaped dexterous workspace (PRsDW). The design process proposed in this paper considers the particularity of the LDR. The kinematic problem is analyzed in brief to determine the design parameters and their relation at first. Two kinds of PRsDWs are considered, one is cylindrical dexterous workspace and the other is cuboid dexterous workspace. The optimal design parameters corresponding to the two kinds of PRsDWs are obtained by means of generalized pattern search algorithm (GPSA) in the genetic algorithm and direct search toolbox of Matlab, and the results of each PRsDW are compared to see the reasonability to the different operation tasks. The method and result of this paper are very useful for the design and comparison of the parallel robots.