Kinematic Design of a Translational Parallel Manipulator with Fine Adjustment of Platform Orientation

We present a kinematic design of a translational parallel manipulator with fine adjustment capability of platform orientation. In order to clarify possible kinematic structures for it, structural synthesis of fully decoupled mechanism and partially decoupled mechanism both with six degrees of freedom (dof) was carried out based on the synthesis results of translational and rotational parallel mechanisms with three dof. All possible kinematic structures were obtained. Of these, one partially decoupled mechanism was selected and a kinematic design of a prototype manipulator was done. Its characteristics in terms of workspace, singularity, orientation adjustment capability, and coupling characteristics between translational and rotational displacement were discussed with experimental results regarding fine adjustment capability of platform orientation.