Abstract—Robotic manipulators depending on their type of chain are classified into two categories: Serial and Parallel Manipulators. All closed chain manipulators are parallel manipulators. Parallel manipulators currently are having wide applications in industry, medicine and entertainment. 4D theaters are good examples of application of parallel manipulators. Workspace computation for the tool mounted is an important step when designing the parallel manipulators. Many approaches have been suggested for computing workspace. All the approaches involve mathematical formulation for workspace estimation. This paper proposes the use of motion analysis performed using a CAD package for workspace computation. A modified 3-RPSR manipulator is used for demonstration. Motion envelopes are initially generated for various combinations of motions and are then assembled to get the final workspace. Avoiding of complex mathematical formulation of the workspace is the main advantage with a tradeoff being the number of analyses to be performed to generate the complete workspace.

Index Terms—Motion analysis, Motion envelope, Parallel manipulators, Workspace

Cite: N V S Shankar and P Vamsi Krishna, "Workspace Computation Using Motion Analysis," International Journal of Mechanical Engineering and Robotics Research, Vol. 3, No. 1, pp. 198-203, January 2014.