A Novel Method for Type Synthesis of Parallel Mechanism Without Parasitic Motion Based on 2R1T Parallel Mechanism with Rotational Bifurcation

Abstract

AbstractThe parasitic motion has been widely recognized as the major drawback of the parallel mechanism. Therefore a class of 2R1T PMs (parallel mechanism) without parasitic motion has been synthesized. However, these PMs can only rotate around two axes in sequential order. It decreases the performance of the balancing adjustment of the end-effector. In this paper, a family of 2R1T PMs without parasitic motion was reconstructed by using a novel method based on the remarkable properties of rotational bifurcation mechanisms, which can rotate in sequential order. Furthermore, some PMs rotating around two continuous axes in an arbitrary order are established by adding single joints. Taking the practicability of these structures into consideration, the workspace of 3-PRPS PM was analyzed as an example. Moreover, this study explores the practical application of the PMs without parasitic motion in developing balance mechanisms in rough-terrain fire-fighting robots. During the climbing process, the tank is adjusted to be parallel to the horizontal plane in real-time. It is proved that this kind of structure realizes continuous rotation around two rotation axes on the premise of no parasitic motion.