Optimal Design of the Three-Degree-of-Freedom Parallel Manipulator in a Spray-Painting Equipment

Abstract

SUMMARYSpray-painting equipments are important for the automatic spraying of long conical objects such as rocket fairing. This paper proposes a spray-painting equipment that consists of a feed worktable, a gantry frame and two serial–parallel mechanisms and investigates the optimal design of PRR–PRR parallel manipulator in serial–parallel mechanisms. Based on the kinematic model of the parallel manipulator, the conditioning performance, workspace and accuracy performance indices are defined. The dynamic model is derived using virtual work principle and dynamic evaluation index is defined. The conditioning performance, workspace, accuracy performance and dynamic performance are involved in multi-objective optimization design to determine the optimal geometrical parameters of the parallel manipulator. Furthermore, the geometrical parameters of the gantry frame are optimized. An example is given to show how to determine these parameters by taking a long object with conical surface as painted object.