THE EFFECTS OF DESIGN PARAMETERS ON THE WORKSPACE OF A TURIN PARALLELROBOT

In this paper an investigation is carried our to determine topological and design characteristics of the workspace of a Turin parallel robot named TuPaMan. We propose a procedure for the dimensional design of t he device components. We mainly emphasize the motion capability of par allel robots, whose mechanical design may be scaled with respect to ex isting prototypes, by means of a characterization of the TuPaMan works pace. Additionally, orientation capability of the robot is evaluated t hrough determining the workspace for a given orientation of the movabl e plate. The numerical results of the effects of the design parameters and the robot's workspace constraints are provided as three-dimension al plots and cross-sections of the most interesting workspaces. Finall y, a parametric analysis is carried out as a function of the device si ze, using the overall dimensions and the area of the middle cross-sect ion of the workspace as synthetic performance indices.