Creative Design of Parallel Manipulators with Multiple Operation Modes

制造、包装和食品工业中不断变化的环境和多变的任务要求开发低成本和可重构的机械手，这对快速转换至关重要。在当前的经济危机中，这一点变得更加重要，并可能有助于重振英国政府承诺的制造业。多操作模式并联机器人的创新设计正是为满足这种需求而提出的。具有多种工作模式的并联机器人是一类新型的可重构机器人，它可以像变压器一样适应变化的环境和生产要求，具有并联机器人的特点，即具有多臂结构而不是传统工业机械臂的单臂结构。尽管近年来在可重构机器人和并联机器人方面取得了很大进展，但可重构并联机器人的研究仍处于白日做梦之中。本课题旨在探索具有多种操作方式的并联机器人的创新设计。与目前提出的可重构机器人不同，具有多种工作模式的并联机器人需要较少的驱动器，而且不需要拆卸来进行重构。最近，我们获得了一类具有多种操作方式的并联机器人，可以控制沿三个正交平面的平面运动。在我们的设计中，只需要三个执行器，而如果使用当前的工业机械手来执行相同的任务，则至少需要六个执行器。该项目将为具有多种操作模式的并联机器人的设计提供一个通用的框架。将解决两个问题：a)如何发明具有多种操作模式的并联机器人；b)如何重新配置具有多种操作模式的并联机器人。本研究将以机构学、机械科学、机器人学、数学与控制等学科的最新进展为基础，为设计具有多种操作模式的新型并联机器人提供一种系统的方法和框架。将利用先进的建模、计算机辅助设计(CAD)、快速原型制作和控制技术，建立一个原型，以证实和验证所提出的方法。这项研究将使学术界在机械、机器人和自动化、机电一体化和产品设计领域受益，并可能进一步扩展到蛋白质折叠和错误折叠等生物医学研究。它还将使所有行业的用户受益，他们将拥有更高的生产率和更好的产品。进一步的研究可能会带来低成本和高能效的机械手。

The changing environment and variable tasks in manufacturing, packaging and food industries require the development of low-cost and reconfigurable manipulators which is critical for rapid change-over. This becomes even more important in the current economical crisis and may contribute to reviving manufacturing as pledged by the UK government. The project - creative design of parallel manipulators with multiple operation modes - is proposed to meet such needs. Parallel manipulators with multiple operation modes belong to a novel family of reconfigurable manipulators, which may adapt to changing environment and production requirement like a transformer and have the characteristics of parallel manipulators, which have a multi-arm like structure rather than the single-arm like structures of tranditional industrial manipulators. Despite the recent advances in reconfigurable manipulators and parallel manipulators, the research on reconfigurable parallel manipulators is still in its fantacy. This project aims at exploring the creative design of parallel manipulators with multiple operation modes. Unlike the reconfigurable manipulators proposed so far, parallel manipulators with multiple operation modes need fewer actuators and do not require disassembly for reconfiguration. Recently, we have obtained a family of parallel manipulators with multiple operation modes which can be used to control the planar motions along three orthogonal planes. In our design, only three actuators are needed, while at least six actuators are needed if the current industrial manipulators are used to carry out the same task. This project will lead to the development of a general framework for the design of parallel manipulators with multiple operation modes. Two issues will be addressed: a) how to invent parallel manipulators with multiple operation modes, and b) how to reconfigure the parallel manipulators with multiple operation modes. This research will develop a systematic approach and a framework for the design of innovative parallel manipulators with multiple operation modes based on the advances in mechanisms and machine science, robotics, mathematics and control. A prototype will be built to corroborate and validate the proposed approaches using advanced modelling, CAD (computer-aided-design), rapid prototyping and control technologies. This research will benefit the academic community in the fields of mechanisms, robotics and automation, mechatronics and product design and may be further extended to biomedical research such as protein folding and misfolding. It will also benefit users from all industry sectors who will have improved productivity and better products. Further research may lead to low-cost and energy efficient manipulators.