Flagged Parallel Manipulators

F. Thomas
(joint work with M. Alberich and C. Torras)

Institut de Robòtica i Informàtica Industrial

 Kinematics Singularities of a class of parallel
Manipulators
platform
Spatial parallel
manipulator 6 legs

base

 Platform articulated by changing the 6 leg lengths

 Platform not fully controllable singular
configuration
 Kinematics Singularities of a class of parallel
Manipulators

Direct finding location of platform with

Kinematics respect to base from 6 leg lengths
problem finding preimages of K

configuration space leg lengths space

Singular locus Jacobian of K

Branching locus of the number of ways of
assembling the platform
 Technical problems at
Singularities

 Derivative of K loses degree(s) of constraint

gains degree(s) of freedom
 Platform becomes uncontrollable
not able to support weights
 Actuator forces in the legs may become very
large breakdown of the robot
 Parallel manipulators
 Forced to operate in reduced workspaces to avoid
singular configurations.
 Alternative: adding redundant actuators to remove
singularities.

Issues: how to plan trajectories?

where to place the extra leg?
Requires a complete and precise characterization
of the singularity loci  Applications to control
and manipulator design
 Goal: characterization of the
singularity loci (nature and location)

Each pair of assemblies sepa rated by Three assemblies coalesce P. Candidate of

singular region never-singular motion is shown from A1 to A3.
 Two-strategy approach
 Simplification of the manipulator design:
collapse leg endpoints leaving singular
locus invariant

 Attaching geometrical objects,

whose parameter space has good
properties easily transferred to
configuration space
 Basic flagged manipulator
 One of the three possible architectures for
3-3 parallel manipulators:

octahedral flagged 3-2-1

 Why flagged?
Because their singularities
can be described in terms
of incidences between two
flags:

Basic flagged
manipulator
 Singularities of
the basic flagged manipulator

Where the tetrahedra involved in the

computation of its direct kinematics vanish
 Direct kinematics
8 assemblies for a generic set of leg lengths

which, in general, lead to different configurations for

the attached flags

The four mirror configurations with respect to the base plane not shown
 Deriving other flagged manipulators
from the basic one

Local transformation on the leg endpoints

that leaves singularities invariant

Composite transformations
 Example: the 3/2 Hunt-Primrose
manipulator is flagged

Basic flagged 3/2 Hunt-Primrose

manipulator manipulator

The flags remain invariant under the transformations

Example: the 3/2 Hunt-Primrose
at a singularity
The family of flagged manipulators
 The family of flagged manipulators

Substituting 2-leg groups by serial chains

 The family of flagged manipulators

Substituting 2-leg groups by serial chains

 The topology of singularities
Schubert cells
Ehresmann-Bruhat order

Flag manifold
Restriction map splitted cells
Refinement of the
Ehresmann-Bruhat order

Subset of affine flags

Via a 4-fold covering map

Manipulator C-space
Classical results on the flag
manifold
Classical results on the flag
manifold
Classical results on the flag
manifold
From projective to affine flags
From projective to affine flags
 From affine flags to
manipulator configurations
Stratification
of the
flag manifold
 Strata of dimensions 6 and 5

Flag manifold
Affine flags

X 2 X 4
Strata of dimensions 6 and 5

Manipulator C-space

X 4
Why x4?
 Redundant flagged manipulators
 By adding an extra leg and using switched control,
the 5D singular cells can be removed
 workspace enlarged by a factor of 4.
 Two ways of adding an extra leg to the basic flagged
manipulator:

Basic Redundant
 Redundant flagged manipulators

The singularity loci of the

two component basic
manipulators intersect only
on 4D sets.
Deriving other flagged manipulators
from the basic redundant one

Local transformation on the leg endpoints

that leaves singularities invariant
 Conclusions
 C-space of flagged manipulators can be decomposed into
8 connected components (6D cells) separated by singularities
(cells of dimension 5 and lower).
 The topology of 6D and 5D cells has been derived, and it is
independent of the manipulator metrics.
 Redundant flagged manipulators permit removing 5D
singularities by switching control between two legs.
 A local transformation that preserves singularities permit
deriving whole families of non-redundant and redundant
flagged manipulators.
 Presentation based on publications:

 Carme Torras, Federico Thomas, and Maria Alberich-Carramiñana. Stratifying

the Singularity Loci of a Class of Parallel Manipulators. IEEE
TRANSACTIONS ON ROBOTICS, VOL. 22, NO. 1, FEBRUARY 2006 23-
32.

 Maria Alberich-Carramiñana, Federico Thomas, and Carme Torras.

On redundant Flagged Manipulators. Proceedings of the 2006 IEEE
International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA). Orlando,
Florida - May 2006

 Maria Alberich-Carramiñana, Federico Thomas, and Carme Torras.

Flagged Parallel Manipulators. To appear in IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON
ROBOTICS