SINGULARITY-FREE EVOLUTION FROM ONE CONFIGURATION TO ANOTHER IN SERIAL AND FULLY-PARALLEL MANIPULATORS

Among the several ways adopted for the characterization of manipulator performances is identification of the typologies of maneuvers allowed by the manipulator kinematic arrangement. The multiplicity of configu rations corresponding to a given hand position for serial manipulators , or to a given set of input values for fully-parallel manipulators, m akes one wonder whether a manipulator cart perform the maneuver of cha nging its configuration without meeting singularities. The paper shows that singularity-free configuration change is possible both for gener al-geometry serial and fully-parallel architectures. Results are repor ted that shed light on potential performances of manipulators and allo w, in perspective, a deeper exploitation of their structural peculiari ties.