On Robust Mechanical Design of a PAR2 Delta-Like Parallel Kinematic Manipulator

Sensitivity analysis of manipulators aims at studying the influence of variations in its own geometric parameters on its performance. This information is useful for evaluating the position error of the end-effector as well as for the synthesis of tolerances. Indeed, the synthesis of tolerances is a very important issue in the design and manufacturing of robot manipulators. In this paper, a sequential procedure for modeling, dimensioning, and tolerance synthesis of the Parallel Kinematic Manipulator (PKM) PAR2 is proposed. For optimal dimensional design, an approach based on the optimization of the workspace is proposed, taking into account several constraints, followed by a numerical matrix analysis-based deterministic method for sensitivity analysis whose performance is studied in terms of accuracy. To calculate the optimal dimensional tolerances, a new tolerance synthesis method is used. The effect of geometric tolerance on accuracy is analyzed.