Novel Reconfigurable Spherical Parallel Mechanisms with a Circular Rail
Pavel Laryushkin,
Anton Antonov,
Alexey Fomin,
Victor Glazunov
Affiliations
Pavel Laryushkin
Department of Fundamentals of Machine Design, Bauman Moscow State Technical University (BMSTU), 105005 Moscow, Russia
Anton Antonov
Mechanisms Theory and Machines Structure Laboratory, Mechanical Engineering Research Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences (IMASH RAN), 101000 Moscow, Russia
Alexey Fomin
Mechanisms Theory and Machines Structure Laboratory, Mechanical Engineering Research Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences (IMASH RAN), 101000 Moscow, Russia
Victor Glazunov
Mechanisms Theory and Machines Structure Laboratory, Mechanical Engineering Research Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences (IMASH RAN), 101000 Moscow, Russia
The COVID-19 pandemic has placed unprecedented stress on the world healthcare system and demonstrated the need for modern automated robotic solutions for numerous medical applications. Often, robots that provide spherical motion of the end-effector are used in this area. In this paper, we discuss a spherical mechanism with a circular rail and provide several possible variations of the design: spherical robots with three or four legs and 4-DOF robots with an additional translational DOF, including a decoupled mechanism. The screw theory is used to analyze the mobility of the discussed mechanisms, and their advantages and drawbacks are discussed.
