Grant: Discovery Grants Program - Individual

This research program aims to: (i) develop new theories for a parallel robot manipulator to improve its dynamic accuracy, (ii) develop new design methodologies for the parallel robot manipulator for its desired stiffness with varying tasks, and (iii) develop new calibration methodologies for the parallel robot manipulator. Specifically, four research objectives are defined for this research. Objective (1) is to study the new performance index which gives an overall evaluation of system stiffness. Objective (2) is to study how to reconfigure a parallel manipulator with mass redistribution and path re-planning to achieve a desired stiffness of the manipulator at a desired pose. Objective (3) is to develop a new error model for the parallel robot manipulator in which three types of errors (manufacturing/assembly error, thermal effect error and component deformation error) are explicitly represented. The error model will be further used for error allocation management. Objective (4) is to develop a new method based on the stiffness model for the error calibration process. The two central questions in the application of the parallel manipulator involve the accuracy and the adaptability to different tasks. The above four objectives are fundamental to the accuracy. The first two objectives are more directed to system stiffness as it is strongly related to the accuracy of a manipulator system and the last two objectives concern the accuracy directly on the error. The academic significance of this research program includes the generation of new design knowledge for parallel manipulator systems and the training of graduate students for innovative design and development of new intelligent systems.