DESIGN OF A RECONFIGURABLE PLATFORM MANIPULATOR

Modular robots introduce a new dimension to flexible automation in ter ms of hardware flexibility, in addition to the software flexibility, i n terms of yielding individual global optimal configuration for each o f the tasks at hand. The mechanical structure of fully parallel manipu lators is very suitable for reconfiguration since those manipulators a re actuated in parallel. To really achieve effective and convenient re configuration, however, there are design and planning issues to be add ressed. In this article the conceptual design and actual construction of an experimental platform manipulator are presented. This experiment al platform is built as a tool to aid our research on the design and p lanning issues related to reconfiguration of parallel manipulators. (C ) 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.