Inertia Match of a 3-RRR Reconfigurable Planar Parallel Manipulator

Inertia match of the parallel manipulator means the ratio of the inertial load of the parallel manipulator converted to each actuator shaft and the moment of inertia of the actuator is kept within a reasonable range. Currently there are many studies on parallel manipulators, but few mention inertia parameters and inertia match of parallel manipulators. This paper focuses on the inertia characteristics of the 3-RRR reconfigurable planar parallel manipulator. On the basis of the inverse dynamic formulations deduced with the principle of virtual work, the inertia matrix of the 3-RRR planar parallel manipulator in the actuator space is obtained in algebraic form. Then, by unifying the dimension and averaging diagonal elements of the inertia matrix, the equivalent inertia of the parallel manipulator, which is the inertial load of the parallel manipulator converted to each actuator shaft, is determined. By transforming the inertia problem of the 3-RRR parallel manipulator into that of the serial multi-bar manipulator, the practicality of the equivalent inertia deduced by inverse dynamics is demonstrated. According to the physical meaning of the inertia equation, the manipulator is divided in to three parts. Further analysis is carried out on the contribution of each part to the equivalent inertia and their distributions in the required workspace, revealing that the passive links cannot ignored in calculating the equivalent inertia of the parallel manipulator. Finally, the inertia match for the 3-RRR reconfigurable parallel manipulator under three configurations is accomplished, and reducers are selected. The equivalent inertia calculation and the inertial match results illustrate that the inertia math is a necessary step to the design of the parallel manipulator, and inertia parameters dramatically affect dynamic performances of parallel manipulators. Besides, the equivalent inertia and inertial match principles, proposed in the paper, can be widely applied in the dynamic analysis and servomotors selecting for the parallel manipulator.