Kinetostatic Performance and Collision-free Workspace Analysis of a 3-DOF Delta Parallel Robot

In this paper, the kinetostatic performance and collision-free workspace of a developed 3-DOF parallel robot is investigated. Kinetostatic indices that examine the performance of robot are essential in robot design and control. The popular indices, manipulability, dexterity and kinematic sensitivity are all investigated in order to evaluate the performance of the developed 3-DOF Delta parallel robot. In addition, as parallel robots generally have a limited workspace, obtaining the workspace by considering the mechanical interference is of paramount importance. The mechanical interference, including collision of links, collision of links with obstacles, collision of the end-effector with obstacles, are also examined by using a new geometrical approach. The proposed method is based on the segment-to-segment intersection test and can be expanded to a wide range of robotic mechanical systems, including, among others, cable-driven parallel robots. Moreover, in this paper, a new CFW index is defined which can be used to investigate the workspace with respect to mechanical interference. Furthermore, the aforesaid index provides some insight into obtaining a well-conditioned workspace.