Proceedings of the 2001 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems Maui, Hawaii, USA, Oct. 29 - Nov.

03, 2001

Anjan Kumar Dashy I-Ming Cheny Song Huat Yeoy Guilin Yangz
hool of Mec anical and Production h Engineering Nany ang T ec hnological Univrsity, Singapore-639798. e zAutomation Tec hnologyDivision Gintic Institute of Manufacturing T ec hnologySingapore-638075. , michen@ntu.edu.sg
ySc

Instantaneous Kinematics and Singularity Analysis of Three-legged Parallel Manipulators

ABSTRACT| Instantaneous kinematics and singularity analysis of a class of three-legge d, 6-DOF p rallel manipa ulators are addressed in this pap er. The kinematic relation between the actuator joint rates and end-e ector velo city is established using twist annihilators. Then singularity analysis is performed using the concepts of recipr oc l screw and Grassmann line geometry. The ina stantaneous kinematics model, derive d using Product-ofExponential (POE) formulation, is uniform to any combination of revolute and prismatic joints in the leg. It is shown that recipr ocal scrws are constructed easily by use ing twist annihilators. Based on line geometry, geometric conditions are prop ose d to identify ach c ase of singularity e con gurations for the considered class of parallel manipulators. These geometric conditions, are simple and thus, the singularity con gurations are readily c oncived. e

Fig. 1: RRRS and RPRS-type three legged parallel manipulators a leg. Then ve joint rates are systematically eliminated by introducing twist annihilators 1]. The result is an expression relating an actuated joint rate to the end-e ector twist. This procedure is repeated for the remaining ve actuators of the manipulator to nally obtain the overall kinamtic relations betw een the six actuator join rates t and the end-e ector twist. Based on reciprocal screw and Grassmann line geometry, w e have proposed geometric conditions establishing linear dependency among screws to identify the singularity con gurations. Each case of linear dependency is examined, DOF gained or lost, therein, is found and speci c robot con gurations are presented to illustrate the singularity postures. Brockett( 2]) show ed that the forw kinematic equaard tion of an open-chain robot containing either revolute or prismatic joints can be uniformly expressed as a product of matrix exponentials. Let link i ; 1 and link i be consi zi -1
link i -1

The class of three-legged parallel manipulators investigated here, comprises of a base and a mobile platform connected by three kinematic chains or legs. Each leg has three 1-DOF joints out of which tw o are actuated and a spherical joint connecting to the mobile platform. Hence, each leg has 6 DOFs. Two protot ypesof this class of manipulators, designed and constructed in our laboratory using modularity concept are shown in Fig. 1. The objective of this article is to stydy the instantaneous kinematics relationship and the underlying kinematic singularities of this class of parallel manipulators. Ma and Angeles 4] classi ed the kinematic singularities of a closed-loop mechanism into three categories: architectur e, con guration and formulation singularities. T o iden tifycon guration singularities, the instantaneous relationship betw een the v ectors of mobile platform velocit y (v) and active joint velocity (q_) is estabilished as: Av = B q: _ (1) The forward, inverse and combined con guration singularities occur respectively when matrix A is singular, matrix B is singular and both matrices are simultaneously singular. T o obtain Eqn.(1), a n umber of approaches based on the screw theory and line geometry ha vebeen proposed ( 3], 5], 6], 7]). In this w ork,w eha v follow edan approach based on e Pr oduct-of-expnentials (POE) formula. Following this o approach, each leg of this class of three-legged parallel manipulators is modeled as a serial 6-DOF chain. The end-e ector twist is expressed in terms of 6 joint rates of

1 Introduction

2 Kinematics of a Dyad using Local POE F orm ula

zi

yi -1
i ink -2

xi -1

i -1

i xi

yi

link i

Fig. 2: Two consecutive links: a dyad nected by joint i, as sho wn inFig. 2. Link i and joint i are termed as link assembly i. The relative pose (position and orien tation)of frame i with respect to frame i ; 1, under a joint displacement q can be described by (a 4 4
i

0-7803-6612-3/01/$10.00 2001 IEEE

1275

termed the twist coordinates. Based on the dyad kinematics, Eqn.(2), the forward kinematic transformation of an open kinematic chain can be readily derived. Consider an open kinematic chain with n +1 links, sequentially n um bered as 0, 1, : : :, n (from the base link 0 to the end link n). The forward kinematic transformation, thus can be given by: T0 = T0 1 (0)eb1 1 T1 2 (0)eb2 2 : : : T ;1 (0)eb :(5)
i i i n s q s q n n sn qn

b s = w v b (4) 0 0 where v (= v v v ] ) is the position vector of joint axis i expressed in frame i, and w is the cross-product mab trix (a sk ew symmetric matrix) ofw (= w w w ] ). The twist, s , can also be expressed as a 6-dimensional b vector through a mapping: s 7! s = (v w ) 2 IR6 1 , b
i i i i ix iy iz T i i ix iy iz T i

homogeneous matrix) an element of SE (3), such that T ;1 (q ) = T ;1 (0)eb (2) where s 2 se(3) is the t wist of join i expressed in frame b t i, and T ;1 (0) 2 SE (3) is the initial pose of frame i, relative to frame i ; 1. T ;1 (0) 2 SE (3) can be written as T ;1 (0) = R ;1 (0) p ;11 (0) (3) 0 where R ;1 (0) 2 SO(3) and p ;1 (0) 2 IR3 1 are the initial orientation and position of frame i relativ e to frame i ; 1 respectively. The twist of joint i can be written as
i i i i i si qi i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i

s'i6

s'i5

s'i4

z x O y

B i4 s'i3
z y x

B i3
p'

s'i2

i4

B i2

s'i1
y

z y x B

B i1 ( B i0)

Consider T ;1 (t) to be a one parameter curve represen ting trajectory of frame i relativ e to frame i ; 1. The spatial velocity of frame i relative to frame i ; 1, deb b _ noted as V ;1 2 se(3), is de ned as V ;1 = T ;1 T ;11 . ; Twist co-ordinates of this spatial velocit y is expressed as v ;1 = (v ;1 w ;1 ) 2 IR6 1 . F or an open kinematic chain of n + 1 links, the spatial velocit y of end-link frame b relativ e to the base link frame,V0 , can be expressed as:
i i s i s i i s i i i i i i s i i i s i i T s

Rigid body velocity

b V0 = T_0 T0;1 = (Ad

s n n n

0 1 (0) s1 )

Since spherical where Ad ;1 is the adjoint transformation associated joints, the can write join t is modeled as three rev olute we with a rigid body motion T ;1 transforming twists from 0 h ;w0 p0 i 0 h ;w0 p0 i 0 h ;w0 p0 i 4 4 5 4 6 4 : s5= s6= frame i ; 1 to frame i. Mathmatically, Ad ;1 = s 4 = w04 w05 w06 h i R ;1 b ;1 R ;1 : F rom Eqn.(6) w obtain, p e Note that p0 4 is the vector joining the origin of base frame 0 R ;1 B to the spherical joint centre of leg i, B 4 , and is given V0 = s01 q_1 + s02 q_2 + : : : + s0 q_ (7) ashfollo ws: p0 4 i = T 1 (0)eb 1 1 T 1 2 (0)eb 2 2 T 2 3 (0)eb 3 3 h p004 i (9) 0 = Ad 0 is the where s (0) s . In other w ords, s 1 1 0 ;1 ;1 i join t twist, transformed to the current manipulator where p004 is the point B 4 expressed in the local coorcon guration by a rigid body motion T0 ;1 T ;1 (0) from dinates of the frame at the third joint. Putting abo ve expressions of s0 1 : : : s0 6 into Eqn.(8), we obtain the initial joint twist s .
Ti
i

: : : + (Ad
i i

^ q_1 + (Ad
T

0 1 T1 2 (0) s2 )

0 n;1 Tn;1 n

^ q_2 + ^_ (0) s ) q
n n

(6)

Fig. 3: i leg of three-legged parallel manipulator (i1 i2 and i3) and a 3-DOF spherical joint. Among these three 1-DOF joints, tw o are activ joints and one is passive e joint. The spherical joint at the end of the leg is modeled as three revolute joints with their axes intersecting at one point. Without loss of generality, we assumed the rst tw o joints from the base (i1 and i2) as active joints and the third joint from the base (i3) as a passive joint. Twists of these three joints are shown as s0 1 s0 2 and s0 3 and those of the three revolute joints representing the spherical joint are shown as s0 4 s0 5 and s0 6 . We de ne frame O as the local frame attached to the center of the mobile platform and frame B as the base frame. Each leg can be considered as a 6-DOF serial chain consisting of six 1-DOF joints. Using Eqn.(7), we express the end-e ector twist (V ) as a linear combination of the six joint rates. Mathematically, s0 1 q_ 1 + s0 2 q_ 2 + s0 3 q_ 3 + s0 4 q_ 4 + s0 5 q_ 5 + s0 6 q_ 6 = V (8) where s0 1 = Ad 1 (0) s 1 s0 2 = Ad 1 1 2 (0) s 2 s0 3 = Ad 2 2 3 (0) s 3 s0 4 = Ad 3 3 4 (0) s 4 s0 5 = Ad 4 4 5 (0) s 5 s0 6 = Ad 5 5 6 (0) s 6 : Regardless of the type of joints, w e can express the t ist w coordinates of the rst three joints, s0 1 s0 2 s0 3 in Eqn.(8) as follo ws: v0 v0 v0 s0 1 = w01 s0 2 = w02 s0 3 = w03 :
th i i i i i i s bo i i i i i i i i i i i i s bo i Tb i i i Tb i Ti
i

Tb i Ti

Tb i Ti

Tb i Ti

Tb i Ti

i1

i2

i3

Ti

s n T

Ti

b i

si qi

si qi

si qi

th

Shown in Fig 3 is the i leg of the three-legged parallel manipulator under study ,where i = 1 2 3. In eac h leg of the parallel manipulator, there are three 1-DOF joints
th

3 Instantaneous Kinematics

q_ 1 3 _ 6q 2 h 0 0 0 6 7 v 1 v 2 v 3 ;w04 p0 4 ;w05 p0 4 ;w06 p0 4i q_ 3 7 = V : (10) 6q 7 w01 w02 w03 w04 w05 w06 4 _ 4 5 q_ 5 q_ 6
i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i s bo

1276

The twist annihilator to annihilate the three twists rep- 4 Singularity Analysis resen ting the spherical joint, namely 4 5 and 6 Based on the kinematic relationship deriv ed in b columns, is given by I ;p0 4 ] (a 3 6 matrix). Here Eqn.(14), singularity analysis can be carried out. Three b p0 4 is the skew-symmetric matrix of the vector p0 , and the con guration sinI is a 3 3 identity matrix. Pre-multiplying it to4 both kinds ofysingularities are identi ed ininverse and combined gularit category namely forward, , sides of Eqn.(10), we obtain singularities. " # q_ 1 ard b v01;p0 4 w01 v02;p0 4 w02 v03;p0 4 w03 ] q_ 2 = I ;p0 4 ]V : (11) 4.1 F orw Singularity q_ 3 A forward singularity occurs when matrix A becomes b Since v0 ; p0 4 w0 = I ;p0 4 ]s0 (for j = 1 2 3), Eqn.(11) singular. Matrix A consists of six zero-pitch wrenches ascan be written as sociated with six actuators. Hence, the singularity con" # h i q1 dition of matrix A is the same as the condition of linear _ b b b b I ;p0 4]s0 1 I ;p0 4]s0 2 I ;p0 4]s0 3 q_ 2 = I ;p0 4]V : (12) dependency of tw o or more suc wrenches. A zero-pitch h q_ 3 wrench can be represented as a line and thus, linear deb where I ;p0 4 ]s0 is a 3 1 vector representing the lin- pendency among the wrenches becomes equivalent to the ear velocity contribution of joint ij at the spherical joint linear dependency among the lines they represent. Line cen ter of i leg. The annihilator to eliminate the second and third actuator joint rates, q_ 2 and q_ 3 , from Eqn.(12) ; ; b b is giv en by I ;p0 4]s0 2 I ;p0 4]s0 3 . Note that this is the transpose of the cross product of the two vectors in column-2 and column-3 of the left matrix at the LHS of Eqn.(12). Pre-multiplying it to both sides of Eqn.(12), we obtain b 1 q_ 1;= W 1 V (13) ; 02 0 3 ; I ;p0 ]s0 1 , is a b b b4 where b 1 = I ;p0 4]s I ;p0 4]s scalar and ; ; b b I ;p0 4]s0 2 ; I ;p0 4]s0 3 ; W1 = , is an b b ; I ;p0 4]s0 2 p0 4 I ;p0 4]s0 3 1 6 vector. From Eqn.(8) and (13), w esee that W 1 is reciprocal to all the screws of i leg except to s0 1 , i.e.,
th th th i i i
i i i i i i i i i i i i s bo i ij i ij i ij i i i i i i i i i s bo i i ij

th

rank 1

point

2a. pair of skew lines

2b. flat pencil of lines

s bo

3a. regulus

3b. union of two flat pencils

3c. bundle of lines 3d. all lines in plane

4a. independent skew lines

4b.lines con-current with two skew lines

4c. one parameter family of pencils

4d. lines on a plane or passing through one point in that plane

th

W 1 :s0
i

ij

It is ready to observe from the expression of W 1 that W 1 has zero-pitch. In other words, W 1 is a zero-pitch reciprocal screw (not in normalized screw coordinates) associated with the rst join t of the i leg. It is also called the wrench associated with the rst actuator joint acting on the platform. As it can be seen, this method of constructing the reciprocal screw is simple and systematic and can be uniformly applied to any combinations of revolute and prismatic joints for the rst three joints of a leg in this class of parallel manipulators. Deriving such relationships for the remaining ve actuators and arranging them in matrix form, we obtain
i i i th

= 0 for i = 1 2 3 and j = 2 3 4 5 6 = b 1 for i = 1 2 3 and j = 1:

i

5a. five independent skew lines

5b. all lines meeting one given line

Diag: b11 b12 b21 b22 b31 b32

(14) where B , called as inverse Jacobian matrix, is a 6 6 diagonal matrix and b (= W s0 ) is a scalar element and A, called as forward Jacobian matrix, is a 6 6 square matrix where W is the wrench associated with the j join t of the i leg.
a s bo ij ij ij ij th th

or,

q_11 3 2 W11 3 _ 6 q12 7 6 W12 7 6 q21 7 6 W21 7 _ 6q 7 = 6W 7V 4 _22 5 4 22 5 q_31 W31 q_32 W32

s bo

B q_ = AV

Fig. 4: Line varieties of ranks 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 varieties from rank one to ve in projective space P 5 5], are shown in Fig 4. While discussing a line variety of rank n (n = 1 2 : : : 5), we nd the condition in which n + 1 lines constitute the said line system (of rank n). This will be the case in which matrix A becomes singular. Each case of singularity, is illustrated with an example con guration of a 6-DOF, RRRS-type parallel manipulator whose base and distal joints are active joints. A leg of this manipulator is shown in Fig. 5. The follo wing discussion shows how to nd the wrench associated with the second actuator joint (third joint from the base) of this manipulator geometrically. The wrench associated with the third joint will be reciprocal to the rst two joints (rev olute joints) and to the spherical joint. A reciprocal screw to a revolute joint intersects the revolute joint axis and that to a spherical joint passes through the center of the spherical joint. Therefore, the wrench should intersect s011 and s012 and pass through B14 . The line joining B12 and B14 then represents the wrench W13 .

1277

Statement
Case 3a Case 3b Three independent lines belonging to a regulus constitute a line system of rank 3. Tw o flat pencilshaving a line in common and lying in distinct planes and with distinct centers constitute a line system of rank three (Fig. 4). A minimum of three lines passing through a point constitute a line system of rank 3. A minimum of three coplanar and non-concurrent lines constitute a line system of rank 3. Four independent skew lines constitute a line system of rank 4. If four lines are concurrent with two skew lines, they constitute a line system of rank four.

Condition
This case of line dependency does not exist because it is impossible to find four lines belonging to a regulus constituting a line system of rank 3 ( 3], 6]) when the passive joint planes of any two legs contain each other's spherical joint centers Absent

Example
Any two passive joint axes are individually parallel to the line joining the corresponding leg-end points of the two legs. For example, the passiv e joint axes of leg 1 and leg 2 are individually parallel to the line B14 B24 . Wrench W13 of leg 1 and wrench W23 of leg 2 pass through B34 , the spherical joint centre of the third leg. When passiv e join axes of any two legs are t colinear and both are parallel to the line joining the corresponding leg-end points. It is the example of condition 1 as cited left. Absent Line B B is parallel to the base. Screws, 242234 s32 , are parallel to the s and base and are not coincident. Line B24 B34 and either of these two joint axes (s22 and s32 ) are not coplanar. One wrench of leg 1, W13 , lies in the plane of the platform and also intersects the line common to the passive joint planes of second and third leg (L1 ). The two skew lines are B24 B34 and L1 . Absent because the three spherical joint centers do not fall on a line Passive joint axis of leg 2 passes through the leg-end point of leg 3, B , and one wrench of leg 1, W13 , passes 34 through legend point of leg 3.

Case 3c Case 3d

If one wrench each from any two legs passes through the spherical joint center of the third leg, then four non-coplanar wrenches pass through that spherical joint center (bundle center). This constitutes a line system of rank three. If four wrenches out of the six wrenches are coplanar, they constitute a line system of rank three. passive joint planes of any two legs are coplanar two wrenches from t wo different legs fall on the passiv joint plane of e the third leg This case of line dependency does not exist because three wrenc hes of this class of parallel manipulator in tersect the other three Number of ways a line can be constructed to which five wrenches intersect: line joining the spherical joint centers of two legs if wrench of the third leg lies on the plane of the platform common line bet ween the passiv joint planes of two legs if this also e intersects one wrench of third leg

Case 4a Case 4b

Case 4c case 4d

If four lines form among themselv es three planes, then they constitute a line system of rank four. If a minimum of two lines out of five lines are coplanar and the remaining lines intersect at a point on the plane, then they constitute a line system of rank four. Five independent skew lines constitute a line system of rank 5. if five wrenches intersect with a line, they constitute a line system of rank fiv e.

when the three spherical joint centers fall on a line This happens in following two cases. Three wrenc hes are coplanar and the intersection point of the other two wrenches lies on the plane of coplanar wrenches. This happens when one wrench of first leg lies in the passive joint plane of second leg and a wrench of the third leg passes through the spherical joint center of first leg. The plane of two wrenches passes through the common point of the other three wrenches. This happens when t wo wrenches of a leg and one wrench of another leg pass through the spherical joint center of third leg. This case of line dependency cannot occur (same as case 4a). When six wrenc hes intersect one line, they are linearly dependen. This happens t in following cases: when passive joint plane of a leg lies on the plane of the platform, then the line joining the spherical joint centers of other two legs intersect six wrenches. if the common line bet ween the passiv joint planes of two legs passes e through the spherical joint center of third leg, then this line intersects six wrenches. common line among the three passive joint planes of three legs can also be such a line if this line exists.

Case 5a Case 5b

Absent Passive joint axis of a leg coincides with the line joining the spherical joint centers of other two legs.

T ABLE 1:F orw singularities for line varieties of rank four and ve. ard A three-legged 6-DOF, nonredundant parallel manipulator having symmetric actuation scheme and passive spherical end joints has following features: 1. Each leg has tw o zero-pitc wrenches. h 2. Each of these wrenches passes through the cen ter of the spherical joint. 3. If the passive joint is a revolute joint, these tw o wrenches lie on a plane formed by the passive joint axis and the passive spherical joint cen ter if it is a prismatic joint, these wrenches lie on a plane which passes through the spherical joint center and normal to the prismatic joint axis. We denote this plane as passive joint plane. This concept of passive joint planes becomes very useful Fig. 5: Construction of wrench of third joint of RRRS leg to locate the wrenches of a parallel manipulator. As shown in Fig. 4, there can be ve cases of linear
s'16 s'15 s'14

B 14

actuator joint

s'13

B 13

p'

s'12

14

passive joint

B 12

p'

13

W 13

s'11

p'

actuator joint

12

B 11( B 10)

p'

11

1278

dependencies among lines/zero-pitch wrenches and eac h case represents a forward singularity con guration. F or brevit y,a few cases of linear dependencies are discussed below and others are arranged in Table 1.

W 13

B 14

B34

W 33

Passive joint axis

Passive joint axis

1. Linear Dependency of two wrenches As shown in Fig. 4, there is one possible case for this type of dependency. Case 1: Two zero-pitch wrenches, hence lines are linearly dependent if they lie on the same axis. F or Fig. 7: Case 2b singularity the considered class of parallel manipulators, this case of linear dependency arises when a wrench of one leg motion of the platform coincident with the common becomes co-linear with another wrench of either of the intersecting point along tw otranslational DOFs on the tw o other legs. plane of the platform. Assuming that the remaining three wrenches are linearly independent of this line system, all the six wrenches constrain 5 DOFs leaving one DOF unconstrained. Thus the platform gains one DOF.
leg 1
Passive joint axis

B 24

leg 3

W 23

leg 2

actuator joint

The only direction constrained by the two wrenches

W13

B 13

B 12

passive joint
actuator joint

B 14

B 23

actuator joint

B 24
leg 1

B 22

leg 2

W23

actuator joint

Fig. 6: Case 1 singularity Example 1: F or an RRRS-type three-legged parallel manipulator with the rst and third joints as actuator join ts, this case occurs when B12 B14 B24 and B22 fall on a line (Fig. 6). As a result, wrenches associated with the third joints (the second actuator join t in the leg) of leg-1 and leg-2 become co-linear. Therefore, W13 and W23 in matrix A become linearly dependent, and matrix Case 1: When all the six coordinates of s are A becomes singular. zero. In this case, the ve screws of i leg (excluding s0 ) become linearly dependent. A tthe most, these ve 2. Linear Dependency of three Wrenches screws constitute a congruence of line geometry of rank As shown in Fig. 4, there are tw o possible cases. four. Therefore, the manipulator loses at least one DOF. Case 2a: Two skew lines constitute a line system of The overall loss of DOF depends upon s0 : whether it rank t w This case can be eliminated because two skew becomes a member of this congruent line system of rank o. zero-pitch lines are only dependent on themselves. four, or not. In case it becomes a member of this line Case 2b: A minimum of tw o co-planar and concurren system, the end-e ector loses tw oDOFs, otherwise, the t lines constitute a line system of rank tw o.The conditions end-e ector loses one DOF. The lost DOF(s) is (are) for linear dependency are:(1) one wrench of any leg the direction(s) of the reciprocal screw(s) to the screws passes through the center of the spherical joint of another system (inclusive of s0 ). This case of inverse singularity leg and also lies in the passive joint plane of that leg (2) occurs when the center of the spherical joint of a leg falls three wrenches, each from a di erent leg, lie on the plane on the axis of an y revolute joint irrespective of it being of the platform and intersect at a common point. This passive or active joint of that leg. This also occurs when a condition is shown in example 2. prismatic joint axis (if it is there) becomes normal to the Example 2: For the RRRS-type three legged parallel plane formed by any revolute joint axis and spherical joint manipulators having base and distal joints as active center. Two examples are shown belo wfor RRRS-type join ts, such a case is shown in Fig. 7. In this con gura- manipulators having rst and third joints as active joints. tion, passive joint centers and the spherical joint centers For convenience only one leg is shown in the gure. Note of all the three legs lie on a plane and hence the three that s0 s in Fig. 8 represent corresponding join t axes of wrenches, W13 , W23 and W33 become coplanar and also rotations. they intersect at a common point. They constrain the Example 6: The spherical joint center falls on the axis
ij r ij ij r ij ij r ij ij r ij th ij ij ij ij

An inverse singularity occurs when matrix B in Eqn.(14) becomes singular. Since W , the wrench of the j joint of the i leg, is also the reciprocal screw associated with the same joint, each entry of matrix B can be written as b = s s0 (15) where s is the screw reciprocal to all the screws except s0 . Thus condition for an inverse singularity to occur can be stated as s s0 = 0: (16) There are two cases to above condition.
ij th th

4.2 Inverse Singularity

1279

s'15 s'16 s'13 s'12 s'11 plane formed by s' and s'12 11
corresponding line system: case 4d
11

s'15

s'14 Platform

s'16
M1

s'14 B 14

Platform

s'13
plane-1 formed by s' and s'12

s'12 s'11

(a)

(b)

Fig. 8: Inverse singularit : Case 1 y of the rst joint (Fig. 8(a)). So, all six coordinates of s13 become zero. It is shown in this con guration that s013 becomes a member of the line system formed by linearly dependent s011 s012 s014 s015 and s016 . As a result, all the six screws constitute a line system of rank four, thereby, losing tw o DOFs. The tw o linearly independent lost DOFs are twists about tw o orthogonal axes lying on the plane of s011 s012 and s013 with directions perpendicular to the normal of the plane passing through the spherical joint center.
r

In Fig. 8(b), s011 and s012 form a plane, denoted as plane-1. The screw s013 intersects this plane at M1 . Note that all six screws intersect with line M1 B14 (sho wn as a dotted line) constituting a line variet y called a special complex of rank ve (case 5b, Fig. 4). The end-e ector loses one DOF. The lost DOF is the rotational DOF about line M1 B14 .

Example 7:

References

This work is supported by Ministry of Education (Singapore) and Gin tic Institute of Man facturing Technology , Singapore, under the u Academic Research Fund RG 29/99 and the Upstream project U-97A006. Thanks are due to Prof. Jorge Angeles of McGill University for his valuable suggestion in this work. 1] J. Angeles. On twist and wrench generators and annihilators. In Proceedings of NATO-ASI on computer aided analysis of rigid and exible mechanical systems, pp 379{411. 1994. 2] R. Brockett. Robotic manipulators and the product of exponential formula. In International Symposium in Math. Theory of Network and Systems, pp 120{129, Israel, 1983. 3] K.H. Hunt. Kinematic Geometry of Mechanisms. Oxford University Press, 1978. 4] O. Ma and J. Angeles. Arc hitecture singularities of platform manipulators. In Proceedings of IEEE Conference on Robotics and A utomation pp 1542{1547, USA, April 1991. , 5] J.P . Merlet. Singular con gurations of parallel manipulators and grassman geometry. International Journal of Robotics R esearch , 8(5):45{56, 1989. 6] L. Notash and R.P. Podhorodeski. Uncertainties con gurations of three-branc h parallel manipulators: identi cation and elimination. ASME jornal of robotics: Kinematics, Dynamics and Contr ols 72:459{466, 1994. , 7] G. Yang, I.M. Chen, W. Lin, and J. Angeles. Singularity analysis of three-legged parallel robots based on passive-joint velocities. In Proceedings of IEEE Confer enceon R obotics and A utomation, pp 2407{2412, Seoul, S. Korea, May 2001.

F or a class of three-legged parallel manipulators, instantaneous kinematics and singularity analysis is presented in this paper. In the derivation of instantaneous kinematic relationship, it is shown that reciprocal screws can be constructed easily adopting twist annihilator method. The instantaneous kinematics model formulated using POE scheme treats any combination of revolute and prismatic joints in the leg uniformly. Using the concepts of reciprocal screw and Grassman Line geometry, simple geometric rules are proposed to identify the singularity con gurations. Based on line geometry, each case of linear dependency of line systems is identi ed, DOF gained/lost therein is found and and an example con guration is presented. Knowledge of these co gurations can be employed at the design stage to eliminate the singularities by choosing appropriate redundancy in actuation. Ac kno wledgmen t

5 Conclusion

ve screws of the said leg become linearly dependent the end-e ector loses a minimum of one DOF. Thus it causes a combined singularity.

Case 2: In this case, Eqn.(16) is satis ed but not all the six coordinates of s are zero. All the six screws of the i leg become linearly dependent and the number of DOFs lost is six minus the order of the screw system formed by the six screws of that leg. In Fig. 9(a), s13 lies 0 in the plane of w13 and p0134 in Fig. 9(b), s13 is parallel 0 and in Fig. 9(c), s13 is parallel to p01 . In all these to w13 34 cases, s13 s013 = 0 causing the inverse singularities.
r ij th r r r r
L1

L1

L1
platform

p' w' 13

platform

134
r

p'

134
r

p'

platform

134

S w' 13

13

13

w' 13
w' 12 w' 11

w' 12 w' 11

13

w' 12 w' 11

(a)

(b)

(c)

Fig. 9: Inverse singularit : Case 2 y A combined singularity occurs when all six coordinates of a reciprocal screw become zero. In suc h a case, there will be a maximum of ve linearly independent wrenches (out of a total of six wrenches) to constrain the ende ector the end-e ector gains at least one DOF. Also

4.3 Combined Singularity

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