Design Procedure for a Fast and Accurate Parallel Manipulator

Abstract

This paper presents a design procedure for a two degree-of-freedom (DOF) translational parallel manipulator, named IRSBot-2. This design procedure aims at determining the optimal design parameters of the IRSBot-2 such that the robot can reach a velocity equal to 6 m/s, an acceleration up to 20 G, and a multidirectional repeatability up to 20 μm throughout its operational workspace. Besides, contrary to its counterparts, the stiffness of the IRSBot-2 should be very high along the normal to the plane of motion of its moving platform. A semi-industrial prototype of the IRSBot-2 has been realized based on the obtained optimum design parameters. This prototype and its main components are described in the paper. Its accuracy, repeatability, elasto-static performance, dynamic performance, and elasto-dynamic performance have been measured and analyzed as well. It turns out that the IRSBot-2 has globally reached the prescribed specifications and is a good candidate to perform very fast and accurate pick-and-place operations.