Novel design and analysis of a 3-DOF parallel kinematic manipulator with actuator redundancy

This paper presents a unique 3-DOF micro-motion parallel kinematic manipulator (PKM) with actuation redundancy. The 3-DOF PKM has four identical linear-motion driving units and a passive link in the centre of the structure. The purpose of this passive link is to restrain the movement of the manipulator and to improve the stiffness of the structure. As a result, the PKM has one translation on the Z-axis and two rotations around the X and Y axes. The manipulator with actuator redundancy is designed to prevent singularity and to improve stiffness. In this paper, the inverse kinematic, Jacobian matrix and stiffness analysis have been conducted. Finally, the dynamic analysis has also been performed.