Synthesis of parallel manipulator with single DOF

This paper proposed a new manipulator design concept which leads to a single DOF system. The system composed of a moving platform and several supporting legs. It can execute the tasks of 3D body guidance or path generation and thus replace expensive manipulators with high DOF in some conditions. There are mainly two steps in designing this manipulator. The first step is type synthesis to determine the number and types of legs. Dimensional synthesis is then executed based on the movement requirements and geometrical constraints. In this study the reduction of the DOF is also analyzed for various legs added between the moving platform and the ground. A numerical example of executing 3D body guidance is given to verify the proposed new concept.