Spatial parallel mechanisms with large orientational capabilities - market assessment

这项提案是为了申请资金，以完成拉瓦尔大学机器人实验室开发的一项新技术的市场研究。这项技术涉及一种新颖的机器人平台结构，允许以六个自由度(平移和旋转)移动有效载荷，运动方向范围大，并使用仅受轴向载荷的腿。现有平台的定向运动范围有限(例如，倾斜正45度或负45度)，或者使用会导致驱动腿弯曲的结构，这就排除了具有非常大有效载荷的应用。该技术的潜在应用领域包括(但不限于)：1)车辆运动模拟，2)娱乐运动系统和3)机器人。完全并行飞行模拟器可以极大地受益于拟议技术提供的大范围定向，例如在飞行条件比商用飞机苛刻得多的军用模拟器中。此外，需要较大横向加速度的地面车辆模拟器(例如汽车模拟器)可以通过利用旋转能力来模拟横向加速度，从而极大地受益于所提出的技术。具有高动态范围和大吞吐量(用户/小时)的娱乐系统构成了所提出的机制体系结构的一个很有前途的应用。在机器人学和机床领域，具有6个自由度的并联机器人并不是很常见，因为它们的定位工作空间相当有限。由于它可以提供较大的定向工作空间，因此该技术具有极大地扩展并联机构在工业上的应用范围的潜力。上述应用领域和其他应用领域将在拟议的市场研究中进行调查，以便更好地了解拟议技术的商业潜力，并就其进一步发展的相关性提供建议，例如通过I2I第一阶段项目。

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.