Design of a Novel Parallel Mechanism for Haptic Device

Abstract

This paper presents a novel parallel architecture with seven active degrees-of-freedom (DOFs) for general-purpose haptic devices. The prime features of the proposed mechanism are partial decoupling, large dexterous working area, and fixed actuators. The detailed processes of design, modeling, and optimization is introduced, and the performance is simulated. After that, a mechanical prototype is fabricated and tested. Results of the simulations and experiments reveal that the proposed mechanism possesses excellent performances on motion flexibility and force feedback. This paper aims to provide a remarkable solution of the general-purpose haptic device for teleoperation systems with an uncertain mission in complex applications.