Geometry and Kinematic Analysis of a Redundantly Actuated Parallel Mechanism That Eliminates Singularities and Improves Dexterity

This paper investigates the behavior of a type of parallel mechanisms with a central strut. The mechanism is of lower mobility, redundantly actuated, and used for sprained ankle rehabilitation. Singularity and dexterity are investigated for this type of parallel mechanisms based on the Jacobian matrix in terms of rank deficiency and condition number, throughout the workspace. The nonredundant cases with three and two limbs are compared with the redundantly actuated case with three limbs. The analysis demonstrates the advantage of introducing the actuation redundancy to eliminate singularities and to improve dexterity and justifies the choice of the presented mechanism for ankle rehabilitation.