A new concept of self-reconfigurable mobile machining centers

In this paper, several considerations for designing industry oriented robots which combine the mobility of legged robots and advantages of parallel mechanisms are outlined. A tripod and a quadruped with the same kind of legs are studied. The robots' kinematic models are built for achieving the machining and walking scenarios. The simulations show that: integrating some clamping devices and some lockable passive joints, six actuators are enough to build a legged manipulator which can not only perform 6-axis machining but can also walk on a curved supporting media. Using the “modified condition number” index, the two mechanisms are compared. They have similar workspaces and static wrench performances during the machining phase. During walking processes, however, their behaviors are different, and each of them shows interesting features depending on application requirement.