Numerical Analysis and Prototyping Details of a Planar Parallel Redundant Manipulator

Important drawbacks of parallel kinematic machines can be partially overcome by the use of redundancy. Despite of some trade off issue, redundancy is a promising solution to achieve improved dynamic performance and energy efficiency. This manuscript describes preliminary numerical results on the rational use of three levels of kinematic redundancy of a 3 (P)R RR parallel planar manipulator. Moreover, this manuscript describes some practicalities on the design and prototyping of such manipulator. Based on the numerical results, one can conclude that if the redundancy is considered accordingly, the manipulator may present improved dynamic performance and may be more energy efficient. The insights on the design and prototyping of the manipulator have shown that this is a versatile setup. Diverse research topics may be studied using this experimental setup: the use of redundancy, the control of induced vibrations, the role of uncertainties on the manipulator´s accuracy, among others.