Multioperation capacity of parallel manipulators basing on generic kinematic chain approach

The idea of designing multioperation mechanisms capable of performing different tasks has gained prominence in the last years. These mechanisms, commonly called reconfigurable mechanisms, have the ability to change their configuration. At present, this type of mechanisms is capturing the attention of design engineers because of their great potential in many industrial applications. In this paper, the basis for the development of a methodology intended for the analysis and design of multioperational parallel manipulators is presented. First, the structural synthesis of 6 degree-of-freedom (dof) kinematic chains that can form a 6 dof manipulator is established. Next, a general purpose approach for non-redundant parallel manipulators (PM) will be presented. This procedure enables obtaining the Jacobian matrices of any 6 dof or low-mobility PM whose kinematic chains belong to the library of chains derived from the structural synthesis. To demonstrate the versatility of the procedure, it will be applied to three PM: the first one, a 6 dof PM, the second one, a reconfigurable 6 dof PM, and finally, a low-mobility PM.