Design and kinetostatic analysis of a new parallel manipulator

This paper proposes an innovative design for a parallel manipulator that can be applied to a machine tool. The proposed parallel manipulator has three degrees of freedom (DOFs), including the rotations of a moving platform about the x and y axes and a translation of this platform along the z-axis. A passive link is introduced into this new parallel manipulator in order to increase the stiffness of the system and eliminate any unexpected motion. Both direct and inverse kinematic problems are investigated, and a dynamic model using a Newton–Euler approach is implemented. The global system stiffness of the proposed parallel manipulator, which considers the compliance of links and joints, is formulated and the kinetostatic analysis is conducted. Finally, a case study is presented to demonstrate the applications of the kinematic and dynamic models and to verify the concept of the new design.