Spatial parallel mechanisms with large orientational capabilities - market assessment

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This proposal is to request funding to complete a market study for a novel technology developed in the Robotics Laboratory at Laval University. The technology concerns a novel architecture of robotic platform that allows to move a payload with six degrees of freedom (translations and rotations) with large orientational ranges of motion and using legs that are subjected to only axial loads. Existing platforms have either limited ranges of orientational motion (for example plus or minus 45 degrees in tilt) or make use of architectures that induce bending in the actuating legs, which precludes applications with very large payloads. The potential areas of application of the proposed technology include (but are not limited to): 1) vehicle motion simulation, 2) entertainment motion systems and 3) robotics. Fully parallel flight simulators could greatly benefit from large ranges of orientation provided by the proposed technology, for example in military simulators, where the flight conditions are much more demanding than for commercial aircraft. Also, terrestrial vehicle simulators (e.g. automotive simulators), which require large lateral accelerations, could greatly benefit from the proposed technology by exploiting the rotational capabilities to emulate the lateral accelerations. Entertainment systems, with high dynamic ranges and large throughput (users/hour) constitute a promising application of the proposed architecture of mechanisms. In the area of robotics and machine tools, parallel robots with 6 degrees of freedom are not very common because of their rather limited orientational workspace. Because it can provide large orientational workspace, the proposed technology has the potential to greatly extend the range of applications of parallel mechanisms in industry. The above fields of application and others will be investigated in the proposed market study in order to better understand the commercial potential of the proposed technology and to advise on the relevance of its further development, for example through an I2I Phase I project.