Design of reconfigurable coupled-serial-chain-based manipulation assistive aids

Our goal is to design a reconfigurable single degree-of-freedom (dof) articulated manipulation assistive aid, whose end-effector is required to closely approximate a series of constrained planar paths. To this end, we investigate the viability of the coupled-serial-chain configuration manipulator design created by constraining the relative rotations of a revolute-jointed serial-chain manipulator with linear cable–pulley couplings. The forward kinematics equations take the form of a finite trigonometric series in terms of the input crank rotations. Our proposed Fourier-based synthesis method exploits this special structure to facilitate the design synthesis of such manipulators. We then examine design enhancements, to permit this manipulator to be reconfigured for multiple sets of constrained end-effector tasks, by controlled variation of the principal structural parameters. Particular attention is paid to the creation of a physical prototype, which facilitates such reconfiguration.