Analysis of Workspace and Singularity of a Slide Equilateral Triangle Parallel Manipulator

This paper presents a novel architecture of six-degree-of-freedom (6-dof) parallel manipulator. The parallel manipulator consists of a moving platform, a fixed base, and six supporting constant-length limbs. Since the structure of parallel manipulator is a double equilateral triangle, it is called a slide equilateral triangle parallel manipulator (SETPM). The inverse and forward kinematics problems are described in closed forms and the velocity equation of the new parallel manipulator is given. Three kinds of singularities are presented. In determining the workspace of the manipulator, four types of kinematic constraints have been taken into account. The parallel manipulator has compact configuration and no singularities existed in the workspace. A prototype parallel manipulator was built base on the kinematics and analysis results.