A NEW FAMILY OF 3-DOF PARALLEL ROBOT MANIPULATORS FOR PICK-AND-PLACE OPERATIONS

In the past recent years, parallel kinematic structures have attracted a lot of attention from academic and industrial communities due to their potential applications not only as robot manipulators but also as machine tools. In general, they demonstrate higher performance than serial mechanisms, once parallel mechanisms are much more rigid, accurate and have higher load capacity and, therefore, can be lighter. This work introduces a new family of 3- dof parallel robot manipulator for pick-and-place operations. Its feasible topologies are described in accordance with possible forms of actuation. Important issues such as the position kinematics and workspace evaluation regarding the motion range allowed by installed actuators and joints are analysed.